


Dixie

by AlwaysWatching



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Gore, Drama, Magic, Magic Realism, Multi, Non-binary character, Queer Themes, Queerphobia, Romance, Southern Gothic, Trans Character, Transphobia, Urban Fantasy, Violence, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 174,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27799471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysWatching/pseuds/AlwaysWatching
Summary: Serenity would’ve done anything to leave Hope. Spending four years at Georgia Coastal University, no matter how shitty of a school it was, wasn’t a hardship when it was their only way out. All they had to do was keep their head down, do their work, and not mess with a status quo they were going to leave behind anyway.Unfortunately, sticking to those goals was hard when the mix of murders and disappearances that plagued Hope reared their head again. They would've been easy to ignore like Serenity and everyone else usually did if there wasn't something sinister about them, a force that Serenity couldn't help but notice. A force that Madame Grace, Hope's self proclaimed witch, called magic.She might've been onto something._Dixie is a webserial about the modern American south, queer romance, and witches.Dixie is written by AlwaysWatching and will update every 5 days.If you'd like to read on the official site, you may do sohere.
Relationships: Original Character/Original Character/Original Character





	1. Stones Unturned - 1.1

Watching the new students made me feel creepy. I was one of them now, but I couldn’t relate to the bright-eyed and cheery way they went about unpacking and saying their goodbyes to their families. For some of them, Hope was an exciting new place to explore; their first real brush with freedom. Others were probably more interested in the long street downtown lined with bars that represented a very different kind of freedom, but at least they were much more in line with the philosophy of the rest of Hope’s residents.

As I watched, I wondered why they came to Hope to begin with. The place was an utter shithole; an urban hell filled with pawnshops, liquor stores, and shitty restaurants that should’ve served as a huge red flag to any prospective students. The only break from the modern mix of urban sprawl and decay was around the university, whose decay took the form of ancient Antebellum and Victorian buildings that should’ve been bulldozed generations ago. The dorms were a perfect example of that. All six of them lined both sides of one street, and every single one of them looked the same. They were shabby, boxy things made of wood with too few windows. It was forgivable for the first three original dorms since they’d been built as barracks first, but it was inexcusable for the new ones. They’d been built in the 1920s, a full 60 years after the three originals.

Coming to Hope might’ve made more sense if the University of Coastal Georgia was a good school, but it wasn’t even that. It didn’t appear on any list of best colleges or have any academic claims to fame. UCG was a place for PhDs to wash up and languish when they couldn’t get in to do research or teach at another university. It was a theme that extended to the rest of Hope. Everyone who could leave already had. Everyone else was stuck or Hope was their last resort. That amount of miserable, bitter people all in one place contributed to a dark, nasty vibe that nearly cut through the veneer of southern hospitality everyone dressed themselves up in.

I took another long drag of my cigarette and made another pass over the crowd, looking for anyone interesting. I found no one. Every year, the freshmen became more and more cookie cutter. It was like they were preparing themselves for rush week their whole lives. It was all so boring. I could’ve picked out any Hope local and they would’ve had a more interesting story than any of the students in front of me.

A car marked with the university logo slowed to a halt in front of me. The passenger side window lowered. A woman with a severe bob and a long, sharp nose looked me up and down with her eyes narrowed. She leered at the cigarette still burning between my fingers. There was a truck idling behind her, but she seemed more intent on talking to me than following the rules of the road.

“There is no smoking on campus,” she said, looking down at me from the tip of her nose.

I took another drag, then blew smoke at her. She didn’t flinch. I could appreciate that. Miss Cox was a bitch, but she didn’t pretend to be anything else. She wasn’t going to tell me she was on my side or was doing anything for my sake. She hated me and that was that.

“This isn’t campus. I’m across the street,” I replied.

“You’re setting a bad example for the new students,” she scolded like she was talking to a child. I rolled my eyes.

“I didn’t know I could set a bad example for myself.”

“I’m only warning you, I don’t think you want to get into any more trouble do you Andrew?”

I didn’t flinch. Deadnaming me wasn’t going to get her anywhere and it wasn’t the trump card she thought it was. The truck behind her honked. An irritated couple sat in the truck, glaring at the back of Miss Cox’s car like they could set in on fire if they focused hard enough. The man who was driving slammed his hand on the horn again.

“I’m watching you,” Miss Cox warned before she signaled her driver and the car took off. Did she think that line was cool? It made her sound more like a cliche movie villain more than a trustee of the university.

I stubbed out my cigarette then withdrew another from my pack and lit it. My little encounter had got the eyes of a few new students who were looking at me with undisguised interest. I waved. Most of them looked away, but a few waved back before they went back to unpacking their things. One man though, saw it fit to not only wave back, but head right for me. His graying hair and grizzled face told me he was a parent.

_This ought to be interesting, I thought._

He jogged across the street, then approached me with his hand outstretched. “Hi, my name is Damian Walter. You’re uh- I’m sorry if this comes off as rude, but you’re trans, right?”

That wasn’t what I was expecting. I was used to being clocked given the way I presented, but I didn’t sense any of the usual maliciousness in his question. He was genuinely curious and he looked nervous and uncomfortable to boot. I’d entertain him.

“You know, that’s kind of a rude question to ask,” I said.

He rubbed at the back of his neck and looked anywhere that wasn’t at me. “Sorry. I’m really not trying to be rude. I only asked because my child is too and I think they might like to meet someone who is like them. Safety in numbers you know?”

There it was. Safety. The real reason he was worried. It wasn’t an unreasonable concern. Hope wasn’t the most enlightened place in Georgia, but it was still a college town. He was also lucky that I was curious about his kid.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fuck with him though. Just a little.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that information.”

He frowned. “Are we having a misunderstanding here?”

“Are we?” I asked.

“Uh, can you just talk to my kid? Is that okay?” he asked.

“Why don’t you send them over instead?” I countered.

He looked relieved. Whether it was because our awkward encounter was ending or if he was getting what he wanted, I couldn’t be sure. “Good idea,” he said before he turned and jogged back across the street. He looked back at me once, to make sure I was still there before he melted into the mass of freshman to find his kid.

It’d been presumptuous of him to assume that, just because I was trans, I would befriend his kid, but I would meet them. Half the reason I even watched the incoming freshmen was to see if there were any visibly queer kids among them. He was doing my work for me.

After ten minutes passed, I assumed that either the guy’s kid wasn't coming. I started to get up and walk down the street to look at another dorm building, when I saw he reappeared across the street again, his child in tow.

 _Oh fuck yeah,_ I thought.

His kid was interesting. They were dressed in a long, black dress with a huge, over-sized black sunhat perched on top of their head. They had on black eye shadow and eyeliner on, as well as a black leather choker. It was like their own take on a Victorian woman in mourning. I loved it. Their clothes suited them well and honestly, they were hot. They had high cheekbones and hawk-like features, but their expression betrayed nothing. They twirled their long, wavey brown hair on an index finger as they walked with their head held high. I liked their confidence.

“Hi,” the man said as he stepped off the street and onto the sidewalk. “This is who I was talking about, their name is Willow,” he said.

There was no way he picked that name himself. He seemed like the type to go with something boring.

“Nice to meet you Willow,” I said.

“Hi,” they replied. They didn’t meet my eyes.

“Alright, I’m going to go finish helping out your mother,” the man said, stepping back onto the street. “Ya’ll have fun.”

I waited for him to walk away, then pulled out a cigarette and held it out to Willow. “Do you want one?” I asked.

“No.”

“Is it bothering you that I’m smoking?

“I don’t care.”

Their voice was flat and they were still looking down and away from me. I had no idea how they were feeling, but that wasn’t enough to drive me away. I could wait it out.

“You’re trans?” they asked finally.

“Yup.”

“What are your pronouns?”

“It depends on how I feel that day, but whatever works usually, I’m not picky,” I said.

“Okay.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“They/them.”

“Got it. Are you non-binary?” I asked.

“I don’t believe in gender,” they replied.

Close enough. The label didn’t really matter. “Cool. Me neither.”

“Are you a student?”

“Yeah.”

“Why aren’t you moving in then?” they asked.

“Because my parents live here and I wasn’t going to pay for a shitty dorm room if I didn’t have to.”

They nodded. “You’re lucky.”

I forced a smile. I really wasn’t. I would’ve killed to be able to get away from my parents, even if meant getting into one of the dorms. They weren’t going to pay for it though, and it wasn’t like people were lining up to give me scholarships either. Not with my grades and not with my reputation. I just had to work with what I had.

“I dig that whole thing you’ve got going on there,” I said. “It looks good.”

“What thing?” they asked.

“Your outfit.”

They gave me a quick once over but looked away before they met my eyes. “You don’t seem like you’d be the type to like it.”

I laughed. It wasn’t an unreasonable thought. My bright pink t-shirt and short-shorts were almost the opposite of what they had on. “You can like pink and apperciate other styles,” I said.

“What’s your name?” they asked.

“Serenity,” I said. I offered them my hand.

“I don’t want to touch you.”

I dropped it. There was no real force behind their words, but I wasn’t going to insist on shaking hands. They clearly ticked a bit differently than I did, but that was fine with me. I liked it. Their blunt words and their presentation already made them more interesting than anyone else I’d seen today. “That’s alright. I don’t care.”

“Alright.”

The air between us stilled and became awkward. Willow didn’t seem to care. They were content to keep standing there. I guess the onus was on me to keep things going.

“So, what do you like to do?” I asked.

“I like crows and ravens a lot. I wanted to bring my pet raven with me, but the university wouldn’t let me have her in the dorm. She died before I came though, so it wasn’t a problem.”

I blinked. They said it all in the same deadpan voice they’d been using the whole time. It threw me for a bit of a loop before I caught myself. “Wow, she died? That fucking sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Yes. She was a very good bird. I miss her every day.”

“There are lots of crows and ravens around here though. More than usual I think. Hope seems to attract them.”

“Yes. I plan on befriending them.”

Befriending crows? I’d never done anything close to that. AN image of Willow and I sitting in the park surrounded by a flock of ravens popped into my head. I could just picture the old women from my mom’s church staring at us in horror. Maybe we’d get called witches. That would be fun.

“Can I do it with you?” I asked.

“If you want. There isn’t much to do. I will only be feeding them at first and getting them used to me. It will take a while before they stop seeing me as a threat and start seeing me as their friend. If you come with me, it would be good if you feed them too. Both crows and ravens can remember individual faces.”

“Yeah, of course. I wanted to feed them. It sounds cool.”

“We are not capturing them to be kept as pets either. My crow, Holly, was injured when she was young and could not live in the wild. It is the only reason I took her on as a pet. Remember they are wild animals.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to capture one. I swear,” I promised.

“Good.”

I looked past Willow and at the line of cars. The people still looked cookie cutter and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. “Do you want to go find some now?” I asked.

“I would, but I have to say bye to my parents, finishing unpacking, and organize before I go anywhere. I do not know how these things will take.”

“Can I get your number then?” I asked.

They pulled out their phone. “Yes.”

We exchanged numbers and Willow stepped away and turned to leave. “I will text you when I am done and we can work on befriending the crows and ravens,” Willow said.

“That works, see you soon.”

Without a word, they crossed the street again, leaving me alone. I leaned against the low garden wall behind me and started to flip through my phone. I had nothing else to do today and I didn’t want to go home.

I could wait for them.

_

Willow watched the flock of crows with more intensity than I thought any one person could possess. They idly twirled their hair around their finger, but the rest of their attention was solely on the crows. I figured it must’ve been a habit of theirs because I’d caught them doing it over and over again during our brief time together. Maybe it helped them focus on the birds, because I could barely see them through the darkening night.

I’d thought I’d get bored after we’d sat there for over thirty minutes in silence, but I felt surprisingly at ease. It helped that the crow themselves, even though they were hard to see, were interesting to watch. They cawed and flew around one another wildly. Some looked like they were fighting, while others looked like they were just socializing. A number of them were pecking at the food that Willow and I had thrown at them earlier. Every now and then, I’d catch one staring at us, before it returned to cawing and playing with its flock.

“They’re going to leave soon,” Willow said. “When the sun sets and it is fully dark, they will go to their main roosting spot and sleep for the night. There will likely be even more crows there than there are here.”

“Why do they do that?” I asked.

“There are a number of hypotheses. I find the most favor with the one that suggests that it is a defense against predators. They are very intelligent, so they try to pick areas with lots of visibility and decent shelter.”

“Cool.”

“Yes.”

I laughed. They said it so matter of factly, like any form of disagreement was impossible.

“Why are you laughing?” Willow asked.

“The way you said yes, it was just really funny, that’s all.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s like- you just deadpanned it and that was pretty good. I wasn’t expecting that,” I explained, but as always, the explanation made it seem a lot dumber in hindsight.

“Right,” Willow said. “Okay.”

Another 15 minutes passed and the sun dipped stared to vanish behind the horizoen. Just like Willow predicted, the crows started to take off and fly away. After a minute, there were no crows left in the park.

“We can leave now,” Willow said, standing up from the bench.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“I was going to go back to my dorm, but if you have somewhere else in mind we can go there too. I do not mind spending time with you.”

Well, that was a good sign. I’d been trying to gauge whether or not they were enjoying hanging out with me all night and I was more than happy that they gave me the answer and didn’t force me to guess.

“Do you like scary places?” I asked, an idea starting to take shape in my mind.

“Yes.”

I smiled. “Alright. We’re going to a cemetery then. Hope has a really cool one with a lot of fucked up history. It’s pretty unnerving and it’ll give you some good insight into the type of place Hope really is.”

“I’m interested.”

“Sweet, come on, I’ll take you there.”

We left the park and walked down the street that passed the dorm buildings and headed downtown. Around us, freshmen started to emerge from their dorms and head in their direction. They chatted excitedly among each other. A few of them looked like they already had something to drink. I couldn’t hold that against them though. The bars downtown were overpriced. I’d get boozed up before I went too.

“Freshmen,” I muttered, shaking my head.

“Aren’t you a freshman?” Willow asked.

“I am, but I’m smart enough to not crowd into the bars downtown on my first day as a student,” I said. I didn’t try to keep my voice down. I didn’t care if people heard me. I considered what I was saying to be a public service announcement.

“They can’t drink if they’re not 21,” Willow said.

“Trust me, no one here cares about that. Unless you’re vomiting outside, for more than five minutes, no one is going to stop you.”

“Hmm,” Willow hummed.

Once we got downtown, the students behind and in front of us started to file into the various bars that lined the street like I predicted. Most of them seemed like they were one bad day from falling apart. The wood that made up their frames had long since started to rot, and the buildings sagged under the strain of their age. They looked like they belonged on the set of a horror movie more than a college town. However, just like the dorms, no one was ever going to renovate them. Hope insisted that most of them were historic and mandated their preservation. I personally thought it had less to with historic value and more to do with the antebellum aesthetic the buildings evoked, no matter how ugly I thought it was. Half the appeal of UCG was how old the town was around it and the architecture played no small part in that. If they fixed up the town so every building you walked into didn’t feel like a deathtrap, fewer students would come to the university, which meant less money going into Hope. That couldn’t be allowed. UCG was the only reason Hope managed to stay afloat.

“I like the architecture here,” Willow commented.

“You would like them. You’re into the whole goth thing,” I said. “Most of these aren’t even that pretty though. They’re all rotting and falling apart.”

“Yes. I like that.”

I laughed. “You’re kind of weird, aren't you?”

“Probably,” Willow said. They twirled their hair and zeroed in on a shop across the street. “A psychic?” they asked.

I glanced at where they were looking. The building was a small thing, tucked between two two-story bars. The wooden door was marred with etched in graffiti, and the windows had heavy blackout curtains pulled over them. The only thing that gave any indication that it wasn’t abandoned was the tiny, messy handwritten sign that read “psychic” taped to the inside of one of the windows.

“Yeah, the person who runs that shop is someone named Madame Grace. She makes bank off all the drunk college kids and superstitious people who walk in to get their fortune read,” I said.

“Is she open?” Willow asked.

“You want to go in there?”

“Yes.”

“If you want. It’s really not that interesting.”

“Have you gone before?” they asked.

“No. Madame Grace kind of creeps me out,” I replied.

“Why?”

“I don’t want to get into it right now,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “It’s boring. I’ll tell you later.”

“Do you not want to go then?” Willow asked.

“No, if you want to we can.”

“Perfect,” Willow said and started to cross the street without so much as sparing me another glance.

I hurried to catch up with them. “It’s not going to be what you expect. None of it’s real,” I said.

“I know.”

The door to Madame Grace’s gave a loud groan when Willow opened it. The building was small and smoky due to the sticks of incense burning in several different parts of the room, along with a smattering of candles. I wrinkled my nose against the strong smell. A large, circular table surrounded by old wooden chairs was set in the middle of the room in front of a heavy black curtain that blocked sight into the back of the shop, making the building feel even more tiny and cramped than it really was.

“This is it,” I said, gesturing to the room “What do you think?”

Willow had the collar of their dress pulled up over their nose and was still halfway outside.

“I can’t stand the smell,” they said. “It’s too strong.”

“Yeah, the incense is a bit much, isn’t it?”

“I can’t go in there,” they said.

“Alright, we can just-

“I apologize that you have issues entering my shop,” Madame Grace said, her voice slightly muffled by the curtain. Her voice was scratchy with age and laced with a thick southern drawl. A second past, and then she parted and stepped through it with a dramatic flourish, her arms spread wide with her cane dangling in the air.

 _What’s the point of carrying that around if you don’t even use it?_ I thought.

“Serenity, it is nice to see you,” she said to me. She lowered her arms and set her cane on the floor, then hunched over slightly. She seemed much more comfortable like that. Her eyes flicked to Willow. “I see you brought a friend. I’m pleased to meet you,” Madame Grace said. She grabbed the hems of her old, oversized Victorian-style white dress and gave a curtsy. The massive amount of jewelry of a hundred different materials she wore around arms, wrists, neck, legs, fingers and every other inch of available space clinked together and glinted in the candlelight. It brought attention to how smooth and unblemished her dark mocha skin with. Her long curly black hair had long since started to turn gray, but the gray looked so elegant on her head that it almost seemed like she’d dyed it like that on purpose. It was impossible to peg how old she was. “Outside now. Let’s chat,” she ordered.

Willow backed up and exited the shop. I followed behind them, and Madame Grace brought out the rear. She fished a key out of a hidden pocket in her dress and locked the door, then turned to face us. I shivered. Her eyes made me uneasy. They were so dark they were almost black, and when she looked at me, it felt like she was seeing straight through me.

“Is this better?” she asked Willow.

Willow let the collar of their dress back down. “Yes.”

“Good, good. Come, I know somewhere we can sit to get away from this racket,” she said, waving her cane at the students packing into bars.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Not far,” she said. She walked around her shop and stood in front of the narrow alleyway that led to the back of her shop. “This way,” she pointed, then started down the alley, her cane slapping hard against the concrete.

“Do you still want to do this?” I asked Willow.

“Yes,” they said, following Madame Grace.

“Alright then,” I muttered.

Madame Grace led us into another larger alleyway that looked like it ran behind every single shop on this side of the street. People hurried in and out of the back doors to bars and restaurants, carrying trash, crates of food, or just loitering outside and smoking. Madame Grace took a seat at a cheap metal table surrounded by blue plastic chairs that were the same kind you saw in high schools. “Sit or don’t, it’s your choice,” Madame Grace said. She set her cane on top of the table. “Now tell me what you visited my shop for.”

“You’re a psychic?” Willow asked.

Madame Grace smiled and shook her head. “No. Psychics aren’t real. That is simply the label I have been stuck with. It draws in good business though. It is a far easier word to swallow than ‘witch,” she explained.

I crossed my arms. “If you ask me, that’s even harder to believe.”

Madame Grace waved a hand through the air. “You’re belief is not required. Only mine is.”

Willow walked over to the table and pulled out one of the two remaining chairs at the table. The chair groaned under their weight. For a moment, I was afraid it would collapse, but it held steady at the last moment.“Do you still read fortunes?” Willow asked.

“I do,” Madame Grace answered.

“Are they real?” I asked.

Madame Grace shrugged. “Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. I can tell you yours for a price and you may decide for yourself.”

“How much?” Willow asked.

Madame Grace tilted her head to the side and tapped her fingers against the table. “For you two? Simply allow me to touch you during my reading.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Madame Grace confirmed.

“I don’t like it when people touch me,” Willow said.

“I understand. If you do not want to do that, then my rate per reading is 40 dollars.”

Willow frowned. “And it’s free if I let you touch my hands?”

“Oh it won’t be free, but you won’t have to give me money,” Madame Grace said.

The air grew heavy and thick with tension. I had no idea where it came from. Madame Grace and willow hadn’t moved and the same activity was going on up and down the alleyway. Goosebumps broke out over my arms and I looked around, trying to find why I suddenly felt so anxious. Usually, there was a reason, no matter how stupid, but right now I couldn’t find anything.

“Okay,” Willow said. They set one of their hand on tops of Madame Grace’s. “Serenity, are you going to do this with me?” they asked.

I rallied. A creepy atmosphere wasn’t enough to intimidate me. My anxiety would never control me. “Yeah,” I said. I pulled out a chair and sat down in it, then slapped my own hand on top of Madame Grace’s with a bit more force than necessary. She didn’t flinch. “Tell me I’m going to die old and lonely now.”

Madame Grace shook her head. “No, no. That won’t do. Something else,” she said. Her eyes bored into Willow. “You saw something today?”

“We saw a lot of something,” I replied.

Madame Grace squeezed my hand. Another pulse of skin-crawling tension pushed its way into me. I shut my mouth.

“We saw crows,” Willow answered.

“How many? A murder?” Madame Grace asked.

“Shouldn’t you know that?” I countered.

She squeezed my hand again. A second shot of tension made it hard to keep sitting in my chair. It’s a coincidence, don’t psych yourself out like this, I reprimanded myself.

“No,” Madame Grace said.

“It was a flock. Murder isn’t a real term for a group of crows,” Willow said.

“A flock then,” Madame Grace nodded. She turned to look at me, then tilted her head to the side. “And how did that make you feel?” she asked me.

I met her eyes and I couldn’t look away.

I was drawn into their depths as more emotion than I’d felt all week, maybe even all month, coursed through me. It was overwhelming. It was no longer just tension. There was joy and fear mixed with boredom and excitement. I couldn’t begin to sort out how I felt. My lips moved on their own. I didn’t even know what I was going to say until it came out. “Enthralled.”

“Why?” Madame Grace asked.

“They were cool,” I replied, then cringed That wasn’t what I’d met to say. It didn’t begin to capture what it was like to see the crows, but vocalizing my feelings beyond that made me feel like I was explaining color to the blind.

Madame Grace closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Ah, but there is something else there too hmm? I feel it in you. A…hope that you can remain enthralled. You weren’t bored today, were you Serenity?”

My hands dripped with sweat, but Madame Grace seemed unbothered. I tried to pull them into chest, but they wouldn't budge. It was like Madame Grace had tied us together with an invisible length of rope. She opened her eyes again and cut past all my walls and saw straight into the core of _me_. I couldn’t breathe.

“That feeling will become more and more important. Your fate is currently entwined with it. There is more out there that can enthrall you, I can feel it. I know. Do not reject help to climb out of the pit you feel you are in. Accept it and you may find yourself even more enthralled than you were today. Do you understand?” Madame Grace asked. She gripped my hand tightly.

I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.

“Good,” Madame Grace said. She released my hand. All the emotions thrumming through me evaporated like smoke, leaving me feeling like a hollow shell. My lungs seemed like they were full of some sort of bile. I coughed violently and managed to jerk my hand back into my chest.

“Serenity?” Willow asked. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m- I’m fine,” I said, still coughing. When I finally stopped, my throat was raw. Gradually, my emotions returned from the void they disappeared into, but they were muted now, like they’d been run through a strainer.

“Now, it is time for you,” Madame Grace said, turning back to Willow. “Tell me about the birds. Which way did they fly when they leave? What calls did they make?”

Willow began to explain in detail the actions of the crows earlier, but I couldn’t keep track of any of it, let alone understand it. I was too focused on the pounding of my heart in my chest and trying to figure out what the fuck Madame Grace did to me. 

_Witches aren’t real, magic isn’t real,_ I reminded myself. D _on’t let her get into your head. You’re messed up enough as it is._

“Did you see the same, Serenity?” Madame Grace asked.

I perked up and shook my head, dismissing my wild thoughts. Willow and Madame Grace were looking at me, waiting for me to speak.

“I didn’t hear the question,” I said.

“Did the birds act how Willow described?” she repeated.

“Yeah. What they were saying was right."

Madame Grace nodded. “Willow, would you mind looking at my eyes?” Madame Grace asked.

“Why?” they asked.

“So I may deliver you your fortune,” Madame Grace replied.

“I don’t like eye contact.”

“You only have to hold it as long as you feel you can bear it,” Madame Grace said.

Willow twirled their hair for a long moment before their eyes suddenly darted up and they were staring down Madame Grace. Their shoulders were tense. They didn’t stop twisting their hair.

“The crows are a sign of more people to come. You’ve been lonely, but crows move as a flock. They watch out for one another. You should watch out for more people and allies to come. Allow them in. Trust them to protect you as the crows do their flock,” Madame Grace said quickly.

Willow tore their hand away and forced their chair away from the table. I cringed at the noise of plastic grinding against concrete. Willow grabbed the hair they had twisted around their fingers and pulled.

“Don’t do that,” I said. I leaned forward and touched their shoulder, trying to calm them down.

Willow jerked up and out of their seat “Don’t touch me,” they hissed.

“I’m sorry just-” I reached out again, then pulled back. What was I supposed to do? It looked like they were having a panic attack. I wheeled around to face Madame Grace. “What the fuck did you do?”

“What you asked. I read your fortunes,” she replied.

Not helpful, but I didn’t know why she would be. Madame Grace was cryptic. That was her whole shtick. She was going to change that because Willow was having a bad time.

“You okay?” I asked Willow. It was a stupid question. They wrapped their arms tight around their body was were still pulling at their hair, lost in whatever spiral Madame Grace had thrown them into. 

“Here,” Madame Grace said. She pulled a large necklace made from wooden beads off of her neck. “Give them this. It will help.”

“You’re bullshit is not helping,” I hissed, glaring at Madame Grace.

“Take it,” she ordered.

I glanced at Willow. They were curled up into themselves, still twisting and pulling at their hair. I didn't have any better ideas.

“Fine,” I said, snatching the necklace from her hand. As soon as I touched it, the anxiety thrumming through me was cut in half. I almost didn’t want to let it go, but I wasn’t the one who needed it right now. “Willow, I’m going to put something on you,” I warned. They didn’t respond, but I leaned forward anyway and put the necklace on them.

At once, they began to relax.

Their shoulders lowered and they straightened up. They stopped pulling at their hair, but they didn’t stop twirling it. Their other hand went to the necklace and began to pluck and twist at the beads. They took a deep breath through their nose, then out of their mouth. With each breath they took, they relaxed more, until it seemed they were back with me in reality.

“You,” they said, turning to face Madame Grave Grace. They got out of their chair, loomed over the table, stared down at Madame Grace. Their hands were balled up into fists and I could see them reaching across the table to throttle Madame Grace. “Whatever you did was awful. I hated it. You didn’t even ask,” they said.

“I did,” Madame Grace said. “I told you there was a price. That price was simply not monetary. I’m sure you see that now.” Madame Grace’s eyes flicked over to me. “Serenity does as well.”

Willow stepped back, their eyes still narrowed in outrage. “I’m keeping this,” they said, their hand clutched over the necklace.

“You’re welcome to, though I suspect that at some point, you will want to return it to me just as badly as you want to have it now,” Madame Grace said.

“You’re a witch,” Willow said.

“Yes, I am,” Madame Grace replied. “Hope’s finest I'd say.”

I laughed bitterly. “You’re so full of shit. Is this how you get your kicks? Scaring people and taking their money?”

“I did not take your money,” Madame Grace retorted.

“What did you take then?” Willow asked. “What was it? Why did you need to touch us?”

“I’m sure you can figure it out,” Madame Grace said. They stood smoothly up from the table and grabbed their cane. “You two should be careful tonight. I know you both can feel it in the air.” She smiled. “Something wicked comes this way, yes?”

I didn’t like how she was looking at me. I didn’t like how any of this had gone. It was one of the worst experiences I’d had with Madame Grace so far. She always seemed to be where there was trouble, hovering at the edges and hunched over her cane. She’d been there when I put a rock through the window of Hope’s First. She’d been walking down the street when Mrs. Cox had me arrested for sleeping in the library. She’d been there when a fire started and nearly burned down the philosophy building.

She was trouble incarnate.

“Let’s go,” I said to Willow.

“Leaving so soon? Is there nothing else I can offer you?” Madame Grace asked. She fingered one of her necklaces. It looked identical to Willows. “Would you like one too? Ya’ll could match,” she said.

Did she know that I wanted one? That touching it relaxed me? Had she noticed that? What was the game here? I glared at her and stalked towards Madame Grace until I was looking down at her like Willow was. “What? You think you’re going to scare me with some stupid necklace and a story about how I’m ‘destined to return it’ or some shit?” I asked.

“It’s bad practice to be disrespectful to your elders you know, especially when they are trying to give you a gift,” Madame Grace said. She took off the necklace and let it danger from one of her long, bony fingers.

“I don’t think I have an obligation to be nice to witch,” I said.

“Oh, so now you believe me?”

I took the necklace and shoved it into my pocket. My anxiety was cut in half yet again. It’s just placebo, I thought. But Placebos still worked. I’d keep it for now. Madame Grace smirked liked I was falling victim to a trap. It made me want to drop the necklace right there, but I wasn’t going to back down.

“We’re leaving?” Willow asked.

“Yes. We are,” I said. I turned away from Madame Grace and headed back towards the alley to the street. Willow joined me.

“Be safe!” Madame Grace called out behind us.

I gave her the finger.

We walked out of the alley and back onto the main street. It was grounding to see the scene we’d left behind hadn’t changed. People were still piling into bars. Nothing bad seemed like it was happening.

“I don’t like her,” Willow said.

“Good, I don't either.”

Even though I couldn’t find anything wrong with any of the people or street in front of me, there was still a dark tension in the air. I slipped my hand into my pocket and gripped the necklace. It helped calm me down, but touching it reminded me of how tired I felt. It was like Madame Grace had drained all of my energy just by touching me.

“Are you going to wear it?” Willow asked.

I pulled the necklace out of my pocket and inspected it. “I should throw it away.”

“No,” they said. They put a hand on my wrist. “There is something about it. Can’t you feel it?” they asked.

I rolled the beads between my fingers. Touching them was soothing, but that wasn’t surprising. It seemed like it was made to be touched and toyed with. It was a comfort object. It was supposed to be calming.

“No. It seems normal to me,” I lied.

“It made the world less intense,” Willow said.

“It’s just placebo,” I repeated. “It’s in your head.”

“I don’t care,” Willow said. They held out their hand flat. “If you don’t want it, give it to me.”

Giving the necklace to Willow and wiping my hands of anything to do with Madame Grace would’ve been the right thing to do, but I couldn’t go through with it. A selfish side of me was unwilling to give up the comfort it provided. “I’ll keep it. I guess. For now,” I said.

Willow didn’t look thrilled, but they did drop their hand. “Fine. Do you still want to go to the cemetery?” they asked.

The cemetery. What we had been doing before Willow got us drawn up in Madame Grace’s games. Right. “I don’t know, we can I guess,” I said.

“You seemed very excited about it,” Willow replied.

I forced a smile. I had been excited. The nameless cemetery was one of the most interesting parts of Hope. Plus, it would give me something to do to fill the hours in with. It was too early for my parents to be asleep. I’d rather scare myself shitless in the cemetery and come home at 1:00 AM like usual, than show up earlier and have the same tired argument with them.

“Yeah, I still am. It’s a cool place. Kind of spooky.”

“Why? Because it’s a cemetery?” Willow asked.

We started to walk back down the street, away from Madame Grace’s. It made me feel a bit better. “It’s a weird sort of cemetery.”

“Is it Hope Regional?” Willow asked.

I shook my head. “No. Hope Regional is the popular one that actually gets maintained. This one no one barely anyone talks about. It never even got a name.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, there is a lot of bad history there that everyone wants to pretend never happened. It’s where slaves used to be buried because they didn’t want them in the same cemetery as the white people. Some criminals were buried there too, but they’re more of a footnote than anything else. There are no marked graves there because no one thought the people buried in it were worth remembering. You wouldn’t even know it was a cemetery if there wasn’t a little memorial at the front,” I explained.

“There is also a tree there. One of the live oaks. The lovely people of Hope used to go there and watch people get lynched. Like it was some sort of big spectacle, I guess for them it was. There a lot of rumors about the tree being haunted. It’s got a weird vibe to it.” I paused. “I know it sounds more depressing than scary, but there is a weight to the place, especially when you get closer to the tree. Makes your skin crawl.

Willow nodded. “This whole town feels strange. That’s part of why I came here.”

I side-eyed them. “Seriously?”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?” they replied.

“Because it kind of sucks? At least I think so. Maybe I’ve been living here too long, but it grates on me,” I said. “Hope is a crab bucket. Anyone who tries to improve it or escape is pulled back down. That’s why everyone stopped trying to fix shit. I hate it.”

“It’s interesting.”

Well, I couldn’t refute them there. If you’d never been here before it would be interesting in a morbid sort of way. “Trust me, it’ll become less interesting the longer you’re here,” I promised.

“I hope I will always like it,” Willow said. They toyed with the necklace Madame Grace gave them. “It’s important we don’t forget what happened. Preserving the past is important, don’t you think?”

“I guess so. I think that’s a pretty strange take on Hope though. Never heard someone talk about it like it was a piece of art.” I said.

“You are taking me to a cemetery where people got lynched at night. I think that is pretty strange too.”

“I think it’s romantic,” I joked.

“You do?” they asked.

“Of course. We can hold hands and reflect on how fucked up Georgia is together. What could be better?”

Willow looked at me for a long time, their face scrunched up in concentration. “I think you’re making a joke,” they said.

“I am.”

“Oh. Okay,” Willow said. Their eyes drifted to the ground. They looked put out. There wasn’t a hint of a laugh. It was not the reaction I was going for. Fuck. I was blowing this so bad. Why was I so shitty at this?

“Sorry, that was supposed to be funny,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be rude or anything. I think I’m still a bit off from Madame Grace’s.”

“It is fine.”

I had no idea if it was actually fine or if they were just telling me that. It could’ve gone either way. If I was less out of it, I might’ve been able to navigate the situation better and repair some of the damage my words had done. If I was really on my A-game, I could’ve turned it all around started to flirt again. Right now though, I wasn’t going to do any of that. I’d have to let it go and hope I could fix it later.

The streets started to become less and less crowded and the buildings around us gradually began to succumb to the decay that was killing upper downtown. We didn’t even have to turn a corner for it to happen. If you started at the library of the university, picked a single direction, and walked in it, the same thing happened. The asphalt of the streets began to crack, more and more buildings became abandoned, and you either got to the highway or to a forsaken part of Hope. Around us, the streetlights became ancient and non-functional, casting Willow and me in a thicker blanket of darkness with every step.

“Are we getting close?” Willow asked.

“Yeah, we’re turning at the end of this block.”

“This isn’t really a block.”

They weren’t wrong. It wasn’t neatly sectioned off like downtown was. The buildings and streets here sprawled in a bizarre pattern that probably made sense when the town was first being built but had since become a confusing mess.

“I don’t know what else to call it,” I said.

“Do people live here?” they asked.

“Not really. I guess homeless people try and squat in some of the buildings, but the police keep running them out, so there aren’t that many who try anymore. Most of This Southern Hope is like that,” I said. “All the students live in the northern parts or by the university, and everyone is to the east or west, where they built new stuff instead of living like they were still in the late 1800s. The South kind of got forgotten in the process. They’ve been saying they’re going to revamp it for the past 10 years, and that the only thing that’s stopping them is that so many of the buildings here are ‘historic,.” I rolled my eyes.“You tell me if any of this shit looks historic to you.”

“It does.”

“Well- okay. Yeah, some of them are old, but no one cares about them anymore and they aren’t special or anything,” I sputtered, trying to recover. “In Europe, they would’ve mowed them down or fixed them up so people could live here again.”

“Are you sure about that?” Willow asked.

I wasn’t but I wasn’t going to admit to that. It sounded right to me and it was one of the most common talking points the locals had about the south part of town. I was sure that some of it was bullshit, but there was always a bit of truth to the rumors. “Yeah. I’m sure,” said.

We turned the corner and I pointed across the street to a cluster of trees and weeds where no buildings stood. A dirt path winded through it all, but even it was starting to get overgrown. “That way,” I said.

“There are no lights.”

“Your phone has a flashlight, doesn’t it?” I asked. “Turn it on if you need it.”

Willow did and held it in front of them, lighting up our way as I led them down the twisting dirt path and to the cemetery. In less than thirty seconds, we were there. It was small and encircled by a paltry wrought iron fence that did nothing to protect the cemetery. If you were tall enough, you could’ve stepped over it in a single stride. The ground of the cemetery was overgrown by dandelions and weeds, while kudzu choked the life out of a few of the trees. The memorial I’d told Willow about sat in the front. It was a simple piece of tall and dirty marble with a short, lame dedication carved into the front.

“This is it,” I said. “Ta-da.”

“It is too dark to see much,” Willow said.

I took out my phone and turned on my flashlight, then shined it over the cemetery like Willow was doing. Our light combined didn’t do much do more than make the silhouettes of all the weeds stand out even more, but I hoped it gave Willow a better sense of what I’d seen a hundred times now.

“That’s why we’re going inside,” I said. I hopped over the fence. “Come on, I’ll show you the tree. You can’t see it from here because it’s too dark.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Willow objected.

“It’s fine. No one checks on this place and no one cares.”

“It feels wrong. Like you were saying.”

“Don’t think Hope is so interesting now, do you?” I said. I turned and leaned onto the fence, smiling at Willow. “For real though, this place is fine. People think it’s haunted, but they say that about every old thing in Hope. None of its real. It’s all in your head. I tapped my own. “There is nothing here. I promise.”

Willow climbed over the fence awkwardly and stumbled when they hit the other side. I saw their hand go back to their necklace. “Okay. Show me the tree then.”

“Hell yeah.”

I led them back through the cemetery and watched as the shadow of the live oak began to emerge in front of us. The clumps of Spanish moss that clung to it swept closer to the ground, but there was one piece in particular that was higher up and even longer than the others. I couldn’t remember it ever being there. Something about it was off and a sudden shiver wracked my body. Anxiety began to twist and knots itself up in my chest, so I fished Madame Grace’s necklace out of my pocket and put it on, then grabbed it like Willow was doing. It took the edge off my anxiety, but I knew I could do one better. I lit up another cigarette and stuck it in my mouth.

“I can feel it,” Willow said. “My skin is crawling. Just like you said. They’d stopped walked a good six feet back and had their arms crossed, rubbing at their arms like they were standing in the cold. They stuck their nose up into the air and sniffed. “What smells so bad?”

I sniffed. There was a strong smell of something rotting nearby, just weak enough that it didn’t make me gag. “A dead animal would be my guess, but more importantly, are you okay? We don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to.”

“How much further is it.”

“Well, the tree is right there. It’s just a matter of how much closer you want to get,” I said.

“Are you going to get closer?” they asked.

“Probably.”

“Okay. Let’s,” they said. They started to walk forward again.

The closer we got to the tree, the worse the smell of rot got. It didn’t seem like a dead animal anymore. I pinched my nose shut and fought down the bile creeping up my throat. Willow gagged.

“That’s not an animal. What the fuck is it?” they asked from a few feet behind me.

“Something big died,” I said. I swung my flashlight around. Nothing around us served as an obvious candidate. I shined my light at the tree, then almost dropped my phone. What I’d thought was a piece of Spanish moss very obviously wasn't. Spanish moss didn’t smell like rot and death. Spanish moss wasn't that big.

Spanish moss wasn’t human shaped.

“Holy shit,” I said. I took a few steps back. “Oh my fucking god I think that’s a person.”

“A person?”

I stepped closer and shined my light upwards. It was impossible to mistake what I was seeing.“Yeah that- that’s a person,” I said. “A person hanging from the tree.”

A gentle breeze blew through the graveyard. The corpse swayed with it.

“We should leave," Willow said.

“Yeah,” I said. I started to walk forward.

“Serenity, what the fuck are you doing?” Willow asked. The edge of fear in their voice caught my attention. I hadn’t heard anything like that from them all day. I stopped.

“I want to look at the body,” I said. 

Willow gagged again, more loudly this time. I looked back and saw them hunched over, their hand over their mouth. “I need to go,” they panted. 

“I need to see it. What if it was a hate crime?” I asked. "What if-" I couldn't find the words, but I trusted Willow to understand what I meant.

“I'll call the police. They'll handle it.”

The police in Hope weren’t going to do shit about it if it was a hate crime. Knowing them, they’d try to keep it hush so no one found out. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to at least see the body. Just in case.

“I’m going to look at it,” I said. “I’ll meet you back at the memorial.”

Willow didn’t answer, but I heard the sound of their footsteps retreating. It put me even more on edge. I was really alone now. It was only me and the body that dangled from the branches of the hanging tree. I inched closer.

“What happened?” I muttered to myself. “Why are you here?”

I got close enough so that my light illuminated the corpse clearly. It made me want to vomit even more. A white man hung from the tree, his face swollen up and purple with his head. An extension cord was tied up in a noose and was secured around the tallest branch of the tree. The loop his head was through cut deeply into his neck, almost hiding the golden cross he wore behind its length. As far as I can tell, it didn’t look like he was killed. His hands weren’t tied behind his back, and it didn’t look like he struggled. In fact, it all looked planned. He was dressed in a fancy suit and wore an expensive watch. The type of outfit you'd dress a corpse up in for a funeral.

“Maybe it wasn't a hate crime, but if it wasn’t, why’d you kill yourself?” I asked into the air.

“Serenity! I called the police. Come here now!” Willow shouted.

I took a final, long look at the body, then turned my back to it and started walking away. Madame Grace’s words echoed in my head.

_Something wicked comes this way._


	2. Stones Unturned - 1.2

After 20 minutes of sitting in my stiff uncomfortable chair at the commencement ceremony, I was ready to blow my brains out. President Lee, a twig of a man with a bald head and a monotone voice, still wasn’t finished with the commencement’s opening speech. Even the professors and other speakers sitting on the stage behind him looked bored. It was ridiculous. If his own colleagues couldn’t pay attention to him, I don’t know how he thought anyone else could.

I started to bounce my leg up and down and leaned forward, stretching myself out as best I could considering our cramped seating arrangements. We sat so closely together that I was almost shoulder to shoulder with the people I was next to. The seats in front of me were so close that I had less legroom than If I was flying coach. I should’ve ditched like Willow did. This is what I get for trying to be a good student.

“Can you stop?” Annabelle asked.

The chances that we ended up next to one another were so slim. It was one in a thousand. I decided to think of it as my punishment for being late. The universe was conspiring to make the ceremony as miserable as humanly possible.

“There is no room, get over it,” I replied, not even glancing her way. I kept bouncing my leg.

“Stop,” she ordered, louder this time. People turned to look at us. She paid them no mind. All of her attention and focus was on me. I hated it. Being the focus of Annabelle’s attention was like being put under a microscope. Her tongue was sharper than any razor, and her cold blue eyes gave extra weight to the permanent scowl she almost always wore. She tried to downplay the harshness of her personality by leaning into the southern belle look. Her long blond hair was in a single braid down her back and she accentuated her pale and almost doll-like features with a bit of light makeup. She wore a short white dress with ruffles and tan sandals. A pair of expensive golden earrings dangled from her ears. She was attractive. Beautiful even. The only ugly thing about her was how much of a bitch she was.

She also happened to be one of the only two friends I made in high school.

“I can’t help it,” I retorted. “You know how I am.”

“If you can’t help it, then leave.”

It wasn’t a bad suggestion. The President was still rambling up on the stage and he showed no signs of slowing down, so why not get up and leave? I’d already wasted 20 minutes, there was no point in wasting an hour more to prove that I could sit and be bored like everyone else. Why be jealous of Willow when I could make like them and leave?

“Yes ma’am,” I said, giving her a salute as I got out of my chair. It felt like the whole auditorium turned to watch me go as I forced my way past peoples' legs and into the open hall in the center of the room. Even President Lee gave me a look, but apparently, someone getting up and leaving still wasn’t enough to stop his speech. I made a beeline for the exit to the auditorium, which was guarded by a bored looking professor. He sighed when I approached.

“Why do you need to leave?” he asked.

“Reasons.”

“Freshmen are supposed to stay for the entirety of commencement. If you leave, you’re going to miss out on crucial information.”

Crucial information? There was no way this guy believed that. I gave him a skeptical look, then turned back to President Lee. He’d swapped from giving a history of the university to gushing about its values and virtues. None of it was important in the slightest. “I’m okay with that.”

“Just because you leave commencement doesn’t mean you don’t have to attend the other freshmen events. They’re mandatory and your attendance for them will be noted.”

“Yup,” I said as I stepped past him and out the door.

Outside, it was swelteringly hot. The sun beat down on me and even in my pair of short-shorts and tank top, I felt like I was burning alive. I hurried across the courtyard the auditorium was set in and to the library, which was directly across from it.

The courtyard was one of the most recognizable locations at the university. The paths were made out of cobblestone and the four buildings within it had a distinctly Victorian flare. Most of them were designed like the architect was drunk when they’d drawn up the plans, but the library might’ve been the worst offender. It was the most asymmetrical building I’d ever seen. The right side was a lot more expansive, with far more wings than the left, but it only went up to two stories. The left side went up to three and had balconies placed under seemingly random windows, as well a clock tower jutted high in the sky as if it’d been put there as an afterthought.

When I entered the library, I sighed in relief. The cool AC inside was a nice contrast to the stuffy auditorium commencement had been in and the oppressive heat outside. It was mostly empty since classes only started tomorrow, but one or two people were still seated at the tables scattered around the room, typing away on their laptops or reading. I walked over to an empty couch and flopped onto it, about to take a nap, but before I could, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I checked who texted me, then rolled my eyes when I found it was Annabelle.

Annabelle: Where did you go?

You: library

I dropped my phone on top of my chest and stared up at the low ceiling above me. I shouldn’t have answered her, but I was bored and the only thing I had to do to fill my time was sleep. If nothing else, Annabelle’s presence would serve as a good cure for my boredom.

As I waited for her to come, I sat up and looked around the library. The only thing that ever changed about it was the papers pinned to the bulletin board at the front of the room. It was disappointing. When I was younger, I loved going to the library and exploring. There were more hidden reading nooks and random rooms to explore than anywhere else on campus. As I got older, the library became less of a mystery and more of a place of refuge. I could find one of those reading nooks and fall asleep in it to avoid going home and dealing with my parents. I couldn’t do that anymore though. Ever since I’d woken up to the police arresting me for trespassing, I couldn’t manage anything more than a light nap.

A few minutes passed before the library door opened again, revealing Annabelle in all of her haughty, self-important glory. She marched towards me with a determined look on her face. That didn’t bode well for me. When she looked like that it meant she wanted something and she knew just how she was going to get it.

“Too boring for you?” I drawled as she approached.

She stopped in front of me and put her hands on her hips. She was a short woman. I had at least three inches on her, but the way she carried herself made it seem like she was ten feet tall. “Yes. What are you doing?” she asked.

“Laying on a couch.”

“That’s it?”

“Is there something better I should be doing?” I asked.

“Yes actually. You have to attend the club fair that’s happening in-”, she checked her phone,“-30 minutes.”

“Okay? Where are you going with this?” I asked.

“There is no LGBT club here.”

I sat up. “No, no, no. I see what you want now. I’m not doing it. There is no fucking way.”

Annabelle continued on like she hadn’t even heard me. “I met two guys yesterday who said they’d join. Elise is going to join too. We need at least 5 members to make a club according to the university, so you’re joining too,” she declared.

“You decided that for me?”

“Yes. I did.”

“I don’t want to watch you and Elise live out a soap opera over and over again. It’s really boring,” I replied.

“Please, there are two people you’ve never even met who are going to be there. This isn’t high school anymore.”

“Yeah, those new people? They’re a problem too. I’m not looking to meet anyone right now,” I said.

“They’re queer too. I’m not recruiting straight people. They’re not going to run off and spread rumors about you either. You’re not that important.”

“You think I’m that worried about people talking about me?” I asked.

“Yeah. I do.”

“I’m glad you have such a high opinion of me.”

She glowered at me, then pulled out her trump card. “If you don’t join a club, then the university is going to make you go to some stupid fucking class for the whole first semester with all the other clubless losers. I’m doing you a favor here. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot because you want to be stubborn.”

I blinked. “Where does it say that?”

“Have you read any of the emails we’ve gotten?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, that answers your question. Now get up. Commencement is going to end soon and we need to go to the student center to get this done. I already have a professor that’s willing to sponsor us. All you need to do is sign your name and we’re done.”

“Okay, so why can’t I sign whatever they did and be done with it? I don’t understand why I have to go with you.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Because I need someone to be vice president and Elise already said no. You’re the only other person I know who’d be interested.”

There it was.“Oh, so you need me then huh?” I smirked and relaxed back into the couch. The ball was back in my court. “Well, you’re going to have to do more to convince me then.”

“Actually, I’m not. You need me too. It’s either my club or you can deal with all the other freshmen who are going to treat you like shit. Take your pick.”

“Oh, so you’re not going to do that?” I asked.

“You know exactly what I mean,” she said.

I did. If I was thrown in with a bunch of random people, I wasn’t going to talk to anyone, let alone make friends. If people didn’t avoid me out of hand, they’d only got close enough so that they could ask the most pressing question on their mind: What did I have between my legs? Annabelle was blatantly manipulating me to go along with her plan, but better the devil you knew. Besides, I owed her a bit too. For as bitch as she could be to me, it was nothing compared to what she could do. I’d seen the way she verbally eviscerated anyone she thought was a bigot. She’d found acceptable targets for all of her worst impulses and took joy in tearing apart the creepy guys who gawked at her and Elise when they’d kissed in public, as well as the people who made comments about me being trans. Paying back that solidarity by helping her make a club wasn’t going to kill me.

“Fine, but I’m not doing anything work for it, even if I’m the VP,” I said, getting to my feet.

“I don’t want you to anyway. Now come on, let’s go,” she commanded, snapping her fingers at me like I was a dog as she turned, then headed back outside It was patronizing, but it wasn’t worth starting an argument over. I followed after her.

We walked back through the courtyard, then out onto the main quad of the university, the other most recognizable and photographed spot. It was surrounded by old administrative buildings, all of which were still in use. They had the added benefit of being some of the only attractive looking buildings Hope had to offer. They were all modest and sturdy in their construction, which wasn’t that surprising. They made up the original campus of GCU, when funding was tighter and the urge for ostentatiousness was cut down by the requirement for practicality and buildings that would stand the test of time. On the lawn, groups of people were busy setting up tables and information boards all over the lawn, preparing for the incoming surge of freshmen that would be arriving soon. A surge I was supposed to be a part of.

Across the street, the buildings returned to being ugly wooden things, with a distinctly modern twist. They were a garish attempt to replicate the antebellum style of the rest of GCU’s campus. It was an utter failure. Annabelle led me straight towards them.

As we went down the path that cut across the quad, people waved at us from behind their tables, trying to get us to stop and talk. I ignored them, while Annabelle smiled her superficial smile and gave a cheery “hi ya'lls!” like she actually gave a shit about what they were saying. She dropped promises to come back right after in the most sincere voice she could muster. I was almost jealous of how good she was at lying.

We crossed the street and Annabelle led me into the student center. The inside of it, unlike the outside, wasn’t too ugly. A large TV was mounted on the wall with several couches in the left half of the room, while the right was taken up by a huge desk and a tiny looking office behind it. A bit more to the right, sectioned off in their own little room, was a trio of pool tables. Motivational posters and reminders to submit FAFSA’s and financial aid requests dotted the walls, while a bored-looking student with a student with chestnut hair sat behind the desk, scrolling through her phone. Her name tag read “Janet” She looked up when we entered.

“Welcome to the student center, can I please see your IDs?” she said.

Annabelle and I presented ours, then Annabelle launched straight into her spiel.“Me and my friends are making a club. It is going to be for LGBT people since the university’s last one fizzled out and died two years ago. I’ve got all the required forms ready to submit and my friend here, Serenity, is going to be VP to my president. Here is all the information you need.” She opened up her backpack, pulled out a small stack of paper, then dropped it on top of the desk.

“Right, so I don’t really deal with this kind of stuff, but I can get it to someone who does. It’s going to take a few days for everything to get in order though, and I need to fill out one more thing,” Janet replied.

“That’s fine,” Annabelle said.

“Cool, ya’ll said you’re the president and the vice president, right?” Janet gave me a pointed look. It was almost as if she could tell I wasn’t completely on board.

“Yeah. I’m the VP,” I confirmed.

“Alright, give me one second ya’ll, let me get that paper,” she said. She pushed her chair back to a filing cabinet wedged into the corner and started searching through it. “So uh, why are ya’ll doing this?” she asked.

It was an innocent enough question, but it was asked so awkwardly and she looked so uncomfortable saying it that alarm bells went off in my head.

“Why are we making a club?” Annabelle asked.

“Yeah, you know, after the last one failed I didn’t think anyone would try again,” she said.

“Why would you think that?” Annabelle asked.

Janet chewed at her lip. It was clear she hadn’t thought the conversation would go this way. “I don’t know. Just that like, people like that aren’t really- you know, never mind,” she said. She pulled out a small packet of papers from a folder, then scoot her chair back over to us and set them down. “Ya’ll need to sign this here and then you’re good to go.”

Annabelle kept her eyes locked on Janet’s for a few seconds before she looked down at the paper and picked up the pen before pushing it into my hand and nudging me forward. I didn’t expect her to let go of what Janet said so easily. Making this club must’ve been more important to her than I thought.

“Sign it,” she ordered.

“Let me read it first,” I replied.

“You should already remember what was there,” Annabelle said.

She was selling the idea that I was fully on board with this well, but of course, she had to do it in the most condescending and obnoxious way possible. I expected nothing less and began to read down the page. The further along I got, the more I wanted to choke Annabelle. I’d known that going along with this was going to introduce some amount of baggage regardless of what she told me, but I’d massively overestimated how much. It turned out that it was mandatory for both the president and vice president meet with our sponsor and the student activities director once a semester about the club, show up to every single meeting if possible, keep my GPA above a 2.0, not get into any trouble at the university, and swear that I’d reviewed all the forms Annabelle had filled out for accuracy.

I should’ve left right then. Lied and said we’d forgotten a form or something and I was about to get it. Maybe even faked a phone call. Annabelle would see through it, but it would get me out of the room and let me avoid what she dragged me into. What stopped me, was the question Janet had asked. It was cynical of me, but I thought that she wanted us to fail. She didn’t want to see another LGBT club pop up and there was no way she was alone in that sentiment. The entirety of Hope would’ve been happier without one.

Because of that, I signed my name.

“You sure you’re okay with signing that?” Janet asked me.

“Of course.

“You really don’t have to do it,” she insisted.

There it was. My cynicism had been vindicated. I glanced at Annabelle and saw her straighten up. Janet had blown her chance to get out of this without Annabelle going in on her. I didn’t feel bad for her anymore.

“Don’t worry, we’re making the club,” Annabelle said. She looked Janet up and down, then gave a flirty smile. “You could join too you know. I wouldn’t mind have more cute girls in it.”

Janet’s eyes widened. They looked at me for help, like I was going to bail them out of what was happening, but I feigned interest at one of the posters hanging on the well. She’d dug her own grave. She could lie in it now.

“Wow, um, no thanks? Like at all? I really don’t have any interest in joining something like that. I’m straight,” Janet declared forcefully, her voice dropping its faux politeness as her smile vanished. I almost scoffed. Did she think saying she was straight was some magic phrase that would banish the queers back to the closet?

“You don’t have to be LGBT to join. Allies are welcome too,” Annabelle pressed. She cocked her head to the side. “Don’t you support gay people?”

It was the most loaded question Annabelle could’ve asked. I couldn’t fight back my smile. This was a good reminder of why I even put up with Annabelle in the first place.

“You know what, I’m going to go scan this into our system and email my director.” Janet scooped the stack of papers off the desk and stood up in her chair. “Ya’ll have a great day,” she said, before she bid a hasty retreat into the tiny office, shutting the door behind her.

“She better file our forms,” Annabelle said, loud enough that Janet must’ve been able to hear her.

“I’m sure she will.”

“I’ll remember her name!” Annabelle said even louder.

She would. Annabelle had a long memory, especially for the people she thought had wronged her. Not that I minded in this case. I’d live long enough in Hope to know Janet’s type. She’d never say something bad to someone’s face. All the shitty things she thought about people would only be said behind closed doors and when she was sure she wouldn’t get any pushback for it.

My phone started to vibrate in my pocket and I pulled it out. Willow was calling me. I looked up and saw that Annabelle had stopped looking at the office and had turned her attention to me.

“Who’s calling?” she asked.

“No one you know.”

“Are you gonna answer it?”

Not answering and texting Willow that I couldn’t talk right now was the smarter thing to do, but I wasn’t going to let Annabelle have so much power that her being near me was enough to stop me from taking a call. She’d already gotten one over me today by signing me up for her club. She didn’t get to win twice. I answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi. I am being made to go to the club fair today. I am calling to ask you if you would like to come with me so we can pick out a club we could join together,” Willow said.

“Oooh, did she say club?” Annabelle asked, leaning close to me so she could listen to my call.

“They,” I corrected.

“Oh, are you with someone already?” Willow asked.

“Not with anyone important,” I replied.

“Okay. Would you like to come and pick out a club with me then? I know you have to attend as well.”

Annabelle smirked and leaned against the desk. I didn’t think it was possible for her to look any smugger. Correcting her had been a mistake. It gave her all the information she needed to know that Willow wasn’t cis, which to Annabelle, meant she had another member of her club. “I’m making a club for LGBT people actually. Serenity is my vice president. A few other people are joining as well. You should too!” she shouted.

“What?” Willow said. “Serenity, who is talking?”

I sighed. “Someone really annoying.

“I am having a hard time hearing them. Put me on speaker,” they ordered.

“We’re inside of the student center, I don’t think I should do that,” I replied.

“That’s close. Meet me on the quad then. Bring whoever else was talking. I’m interested in what they said,” Willow said before they hung up. I slipped my phone back into my pocket and rubbed at my face.

“How’d it go?” Annabelle asked.

I started to walk towards the door, ignoring her question. Annabelle followed behind me.

“You owe me,” I said as soon as we were back outside. “You sold me some bullshit back in the library. I should’ve left when I read that form.”

“I did you a favor.”

“You fucked me over.”

“How? By making you join a club? That was up to you. You knew your alternative and you decided what I was offering was better. I don’t think I did anything wrong.”

Of course, she didn’t. Annabelle never thought she did anything wrong. That was her whole modus operandi. Mistakes were something other people made. “You lied to me,” I replied as we started to cross the street.

“I never lied. You said you weren’t doing any work for it and I told you that I didn’t want you to. There was no lie there.”

She was so smug about it. As if lies of omission made her less culpable. As soon as we were back across the street, I turned on her and got in her face. “Don’t treat me like I’m a fucking idiot. Just own up to it. You got one over on me, fine, go pat yourself on the back over it, but don’t pretend like you didn’t do anything. You owe me for doing this. I want a favor from you.”

Annabelle rolled her eyes and gave an exaggerated, dramatic sigh. She didn’t look the slightest bit intimidated by me. “Fine. I owe your a favor now. Congrats.”

I stepped away. “Glad we agree.”

“Serenity!” Willow shouted.

I turned and saw Willow striding towards me. Today, they were dressed much more subdued in a simple pair of black jeans and a blouse with the same sun hat they had on from yesterday. It was the antithesis of my typical short shorts and a bright pink t-shirt.

“Oh? Who’s this?” Annabelle asked. “They’re not from Hope, are they?”

“No, they’re not,” I said.

Willow stopped in front of us and wiped an invisible bead of sweat from their forehead. “What were you saying about a club?” Willow asked wasting zero time.

“I’m making a club for LGBT people. Do you-”

“I’ll join,” Willow said, cutting Annabelle off. They looked relieved. “Where do I do that?”

“It’s not official yet,” I said. “We’re waiting on it to be approved.”

“Okay. I will join after then.”

“What’s your name?” Annabelle asked. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“My name is Willow. I’m from North Georgia. I’m here for college. Who are you?”

“My name is Annabelle. I’m from here.”

“You know Serenity?” Willow asked.

“Yeah, we’re friends from high school.”

“That’s one word for it,” I muttered.

“Of course we’re friends,” Annabelle said. She wrapped an arm around my shoulder, then tapped her chin. “You know, why don’t we have an impromptu club meeting now? We can trade schedules for classes and all of that. It’ll be fun.”

“Oh please no,” I complained.

“Okay,” Willow said. “We can do that.”

Fuck. I was hoping Willow would turn down the offer and that would give me the excuse I needed to get away from Annabelle, but that plan was ruined. I was going to be stuck with her for the rest of the day.

“Great, I’ll tell the others to meet us in the library. We can go there now to get to know one another while we wait,” she said. She pulled out her phone and started tapping out messages. “Let’s go.”

_

Willow and Annabelle did not get along that well, which made me unreasonably happy. Annabelle kept trying to get Willow to talk about things she wanted to, but Willow wouldn’t bite. They’d give a few terse responses, the room would go quiet, and Annabelle would find something new and try again, only for the same process to repeat.

We were sitting in a small, never used room on the second floor on the right side of the library. It had been hidden behind several bookshelves and all the furniture in it had been covered with dust. I’d known about the room from previous explorations from the library. Every time I tried to open the door and get into the room, it’d been locked. However, Annabelle somehow had gotten the key. She refused to tell me how.

“Are other people coming or not?” I asked.

“Yes, they’re just finishing up the club fair,” Annabelle replied. “They wanted to check out their options I guess. Be patient.” She looked back and forth between me and Willow. “So, I have a question. If you two just met each other yesterday, then why do you have matching necklaces?”

“We-”

“We go them from Madame Grace, the witch downtown,” Willow cut me off.

Annabelle grinned like she’d struck gold. “Ya’ll went to Madame Grace’s?”

“Yes,” Willow said.

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to do it,” Willow replied. “It was… interesting.”

“You know she gives weird shit like that to everyone right?” Annabelle said.

“What? She does? Since when?” I asked.

“Seriously? You never noticed all the random jewelry people walked around with in high school? Her whole thing is handing out stuff to people. You’d think she would’ve lost half the shit she gave out by now, but I’ve seen some of the same of the more notable stuff she’s given out worn by multiple different people. Apparently, she’s getting them back somehow,” Annabelle explained.

Willow toyed with the necklace and twisted their hair. “She implied that people return them.”

Someone knocked on the door, ending our conversation. “Enter!” Annabelle bellowed, leaning back in her chair. The door opened and two guys walked in. One of them was built like a bear and had the muscle to show for it. He was dressed in a pair of loose canvas shorts and a black t-shirt. His skin was a warm tanned shade of light brown, and he had a shaggy head of brown curls that went down to his chin and contrasted starkly with his neatly trimmed and full beard.

Next to him was a guy who looked to be a few inches taller than me with dark brown skin and a pair of large, nerdy thick-rimmed glasses that complimented his round face. He was clean-shaven and his hair was cut close to his head. There wasn’t a single blemish I could spot on his skin. He was thin and lanky and dressed like a southern dandy, complete with a vest, a dark short sleeve button up under it, a pair of light brown slacks, and a tie. All of it looked expensive. I had no idea how he wasn’t dying from the heat.

“I’m assuming this is the club? My name is Darius, it’s nice to meet ya’ll,” the dandy said. He looked around the room and tried to meet everyone’s eyes while he flashed a 100 watt smile.

“I’m Arif,” the bear of a man greeted with a little wave. “Thanks for setting this up by the way. I was nervous that I wasn’t going to be able to find any other gay people on campus.”

“Don’t thank her, she doesn’t deserve it,” I said.

“Why’s that?” Darius asked. He walked further into the room and leaned against one of the walls instead of sitting in a chair. “She seems like a fine young woman to me. On what ground do you attack her honor?”

Arif groaned. “Darius, seriously?”

Darius held up his hands. “What? I thought it was a good question.”

“Serenity’s is always testy, just ignore it,” Annabelle said, gesturing to me.

“Bite me,” I retorted.

Darius looked at me for a long moment, then cleared his throat. “Alright, gonna get this one out of the way now, because I don’t want to fuck it up later, what do I call you? What’s your whole deal?”

Arif ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry about him. He has no tact.”

“It’s fine. I don’t care. You can call me whatever most of the time. I’ll correct you when I need to,” I said.

“Right, okay.” He looked at Willow. “What about you?”

“I’m Willow and I am not a man or a woman. Do not call me either. They/them are my pronouns.”

“Works for me. It’s good to meet ya’ll. Since we’re sharing our genders, I’m a guy,” he nudged Arif. “He is too. He/him works if we’re doing that too.”

I liked listening to Darius speak. He a deep, soothing voice that I could’ve listened to for hours. As far as first impressions went, he wasn’t doing too badly. He had a strong personality, but I’d like that. He was interesting to look at too. His style wasn’t for me, but it said something about him. He wasn’t boring.

“Who are we waiting for?” Arif asked glancing out into the hall.

“Someone named Elise. Their Annabelle’s best friend,” I purred, seeing an opportunity for revenge. “Ask her about it. She’d love to explain.”

“Fuck you, we’re barely friends,” Annabelle shot back.

“Right, you’re only ‘friends.’ My bad.”

“I see ya’ll have some history,” Darius commented.

“Oh, Elise and Annabelle have a ton of history. Let me tell you,” I said.

“You’re talking a lot for someone who looks like they’re wearing matching collars with someone they met a day ago,” Annabelle snarked.

“These aren’t even close to collars,” Willow said.

“That’s not the point.”

“I don’t think I know what the point was in the first place? Is there something I’m missing?” Arif asked.

“No, Serenity is just being a bitch.”

“That’s ironic,” I said.

“What does this Elise person look like?” Arif asked trying to swap topics.

“She’s tan. Mexican. Kind of chubby, short black hair,” I listed. “You’ll know her when you see her. She’s hard to miss.”

“I think I see her now,” he said. Arif moved further into the room and leaned against the wall opposite of Darius.

A few seconds later, Elise appeared in the doorway, wearing a rakish grin.“Wow, there are a ton of ya’ll! I didn’t think there would be so many!” she said brightly. “I’m Elise, it’s great to meet everyone. I’m really excited to spend time with ya’ll!”

“You too,” Darius said.

“Okay, okay. I’m sure we’ve done introductions, but let’s do it again now that we’re all here. Everyone go around the room and say your name,” Elise ordered.

“We’re not doing that. You already know two of us. For the people you don’t know, that’s Darius, Arif, and Willow,” Annabelle said, pointing at each of them respectively.

“Killjoy,” Elise said. She shut the door behind her, then pulled out a chair next to me plopped down in it. “How are you Serenity? I haven’t seen you since graduation. I’m glad you decided to go to college.”

Decided wasn’t the word I’d go with. There weren’t that many places to work in Hope, especially places that were willing to hire me, and my parents weren’t going to lend me any money for school unless I stopped taking hormones and started being “normal” again. Going to GCU was my only option since I didn’t have to pay for housing or food and the tuition was cheap enough for financial aid and my loans to cover.

“I’m glad too. It’s nice to see you,” I said.

“So, why are we all here?” Darius asked. “Is this a social club or are we carrying out the homosexual agenda?”

“Ya’ll can make it whatever you want. I’m only here because I didn’t want to join anything else,” I answered.

“A social club it is then,” Darius declared. He looked around the room and then turned up his nose. “In that case, isn’t there somewhere more comfortable we could meet?”

“Yeah, the room is kind of cramped,” Arif complained.

“I’m working on it. We should have an actual class to meet in soon, but we don’t have to meet on campus at all. I’d prefer not to really. I don’t mind hosting everyone at my house,” Annabelle said.

“That’s because you live in a mansion,” I remarked.

“Wait, really?” Arif asked. “A literal mansion?”

“Yup, it’s pretty nice,” Elise said. She smiled at Annabelle. “You could host a party tonight. We can commemorate the club and getting into school. I’m pressed for time right now anyway, so we could talk more there too,”

“I don’t like parties,” Willow said.

“Don’t worry, it’ll just be the six of us,” Elise assured.

“If your idea of a party is going to be more sitting around then I’m not interested,” Darius said.

“I have booze,” Elise grinned. “And weed. If you like that.”

“I’m interested,” Darius amended.

“I never said I was going to host a party,” Annabelle said.

Elise stood up and walked over to her, then put her hands behind her back, leaned forward so her face was close to Annabelle’s, and gave Annabelle her best puppy dog eyes. “Please?” she whined.

Annabelle gritted her teeth, but she didn't say no. It was kind of pathetic. For as much as she insisted that she was over Elise and she didn’t care about her, she was insanely whipped.

“I’m bringing alcohol. You can host. Come on,” Elise goaded. “Ya’ll should bring things too. Food. More booze.”

“Wow, okay not where I thought we were going with this,” Arif said.

“Getting drunk on your first Friday at college is mandatory,” Elise said. “It'll be fun. I promise.”

I looked at Willow. As usual, their face betrayed nothing. “You okay with this?” I asked them.

“I've never drank or smoked before or gone to a party really. I don’t like the atmosphere, but if it’s just us, it might be fine. I’m willing to try."

“I haven’t either,” Arif admitted. “My parents are kind of strict about this kind of thing.”

“You don’t have to do either if you don’t want. No pressure,” Elise said.

“Well, are we doing it?” Arif asked. “Annabelle are you alright with it because it doesn't seem like you are.”

Everyone turned to look at her. Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Fine. Ya’ll can come over,” Annabelle conceded.

Elise clapped her hands. “Great! Everyone exchange numbers. Annabelle will text them to when she has them all. We’ll meet at 8:00 tonight. I’ll give you Annabelle’s address.” She then stood up and promptly exited the room with a cheery goodbye.

“I like her,” Darius said after a moment of silence.

“I don’t,” Annabelle replied, but everyone in the room knew she was lying.

_

The city became more modern and more depressing the further I got from campus. The buildings stopped being ancient things of rotten wood and swapped to things made out of concrete and brick that was somehow worse than the campus’s antebellum style. At least campus was unique. Harper street, the long four-lane road that cut through Hope, could’ve been placed anywhere in the US without a problem. Fast food places, pawn shops, and liquors stores lined both sides of the street, only occasionally interrupted by a big box retail store. Everything was a massive corporation except for the pawn shops and liquor stores.

I turned a corner and walked down a side street, then made a final turn into my neighborhood. It wasn’t very impressive. Most of the houses were small and ranch style with splintered wooden porches that were falling apart. College students had started to become the majority residents of the neighborhood, and the houses they lived in suffered for it. Whoever their landlords were refused to put in the most basic upkeep. Lawns stayed unmowed, paint continued to chip off the outside of the houses, and broken steps or railings on porches were never repaired. The locals in the neighborhood didn’t put in that much more effort, but at least someone made a half-hearted attempt to mow their lawn once a month.

My house stood on the right of the first four-way intersection of the neighborhood. It was par for the course of the neighborhood. The front porch steps had rotted away completely and there was a web of cracks on the window to the right of the front door that never got fixed. The lawn was overgrown with weeds, and the windows that weren’t cracked were streaked with dirt. The familiar scent of someone smoking drifted through the air. I dragged my hand through my hair, mentally preparing myself for the inevitable confrontation with my dad. If I could smell smoke, it meant that he was sitting out on the back porch in his rocking chair, chainsmoking cigarettes and drinking beer in a white tank top and a dirty pair of jeans. He couldn’t have been more of a stereotype if he tried. I secretly thought he reveled in the idea.

I walked around the house and spotted my dad doing exactly what I thought he was. He had a bluetooth speaker next to him and was listening to some right-wing talk show host rage about whatever the latest trend was. He looked up at me but didn’t seem all too interested in my presence. I wondered if he was just as tired of the conversation we were about to have as I was.

“Hi Matthew,” he said. “Decide to come home now?”

“That’s not my name,” I replied.

“It is,” he replied.

I walked over to the sturdy wooden trellis that led up to my window and grabbed hold of it. My parents had threatened to take it down when they found out I was using it to sneak in and out, but they’d never made good on the threat.

“You’re not climbing up that, you’re going to break it,” my dad said. His voice was monotone. He was just going through the motions.

I ignored him and started to climb up the trellis.

“I see you’re still dressing like a faggot,” he said conversationally once I was halfway up.

“Yup.”

“Looks like you’re still taking those fucking pills too,” he grumbled.

“Yup.”

“You’re ruining your body you know.”

“Yeah.”

“You know I love you. I wish you wouldn’t do this to yourself,” he said. It was impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic.

“Sure dad.” I reached my window and slid it open, then climbed into my room and slammed the window shut behind me. Maybe I could convince Elise to let me crash at her house for a few days. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d done it. Her family was big enough that I could slip through the cracks and have everyone but Elise ignore me as they went about their day. Elise told me they used to talk shit about me in Spanish when I was there, but at some point, I’d grown on them. Some of her siblings had even apologized.

I could stay with Willow too, but not for more than one night. They had a roommate, one that wouldn't’ appreciate me trying to live there. Not that I’d blame them. I’d seen those dorms. They were barely big enough for two people. Three would be pushing it.

Regardless of where I tried to crash, I’d be imposing myself on someone. Forcing them to deal with me for longer than they wanted to. _No winning_ , I thought bitterly.

I took a look around my room and sighed. It was a mess. Clothes were scattered all over the floor and my bed was unmade. I had no plans on changing any of it. I picked my backpack off the floor, threw it on my bed, then started to stuff it full with clothes from my drawers. After I’d forced a week's worth of clothes into it, I got out a small locked box I kept in my bottom drawer. Inside it, was my weed and hormones. It wasn’t particularly well hidden, but I wasn’t worried about my parents trying to go through my room and throwing it out. They preferred to leverage their power through money and bitching at me more than anything else.

“Marie! Matthew is home!” my dad shouted downstairs. “He went up to his room! He said he wanted to talk to you!”

She had to know he was full of shit, but my mom didn’t care. It was all pretense anyway. All my dad was doing was telling her that it was time for her to have a go at me.

“Matthew! I know you’re in there! Your father said you were! Come out and talk!” she shouted up the stairs.

Fuck. I’d really been hoping to take a shower, but there was no way I could do that with my mom breathing down my neck. Maybe Willow’s dorm could be useful for this. They might’ve not been able to give me a place to sleep, but showering and cleaning up should be within the realm of possibility.

“If you’re not going to answer me, I’m coming up there!” my mom shouted. She stomped up the stairs, then banged on my door. “Talk to me! It’s been a week since I’ve even seen you!”

“What do you want?” I asked, glaring at my door.

“To talk to my son? Is that such a crime?” she replied. Her voice was deep and raspy from all the cigarettes she smoked. Another reminder of why I should quit.

“I’m not your son.” I opened up another drawer, then got out a pale pink sundress. It was my favorite piece of clothing and looked nice to boot. I decided to wear it tonight.

“Can’t we chat for a little? I know you need money. It’s been a while since you asked,” my mom said.

There it was. Money. The thing they held over my head like I was a dog. Financial aid and student loans had already kicked in, giving me enough money for books and a bit extra that I could leverage towards hormones and other things I might need, but even with that, I was still skating by on razor-thin margins. Every part of me screamed that it was a bad idea to take the bait, but I figured it was worth the risk.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked. I got out a small makeup bag from the same drawer as my dress and put it in my backpack. It was stuffed so full I could barely zip it shut. It was a bit overboard for what I was doing tonight, but I wasn’t going to start unpacking now, not when I could grab it and go as soon as this conversation ended.

“I want to check in on you. Ask you how college was. Please open the door and let me see you,” my mom said.

“Are you going to give me money if I do?” I asked. She wasn’t the only one who could petty.

“I’m not going to pay to talk to my son, no. I give you enough as it is. You live here for free and food goes missing from my fridge that I know your father didn't eat. That’s money right there. With the way you act, you’re lucky we haven’t kicked you out.”

 _So much for giving me money_ , I thought. It was just set up for another empty threat. If they were ever going to kick me out, they would’ve done it already. That and I knew that my parents cared too much about other people’s opinions of them to do anything like that, especially my mom. If word got out to Bishop, the head of the local baptist church, that she kicked me out she’d never live it down. The whole church would look down at her. It was her worst fear.

“So that’s a no on the money then?” I needled.

“Serenity, open the door,” my mom commanded.

She was manipulating me. She only used my real name when she wanted something for me but it was better than hearing my dead name. Hearting it also made me feel guilty. Every now and then, my mom seemed like she was going to accept a part of me. Just like the money, she almost always took it back as soon as I tried to accept it, but I still wanted to encourage the behavior, to protect the little flame of hope that burned within me. The one that said that maybe, just maybe, my parents would eventually accept and love me for who I was.

I opened the door.

My mom stood on the other side. She had the same strawberry blond hair and moderate build I had. Her face was littered with even more freckles than mine and she had a cheap pair of reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Crow's feet danced around her eyes and she had laugh lines etched into her skin. The longer I was on hormones, the more I looked like her. Not as she was now of course, but how she looked when she was my age. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. No matter what I did, I was doomed to carry on her legacy and be a slightly bulky, more masculine version of her with teal eyes instead of blue. It was better than looking like my dad at least.

“Hi,” I said

“Do you have to wear those clothes?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“I like them.”

“They make you look like a queer.”

“I am a queer.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. I don’t want to talk about that right now anyway. Let’s not go there okay? You always bring it up.”

“I bring it up?”

“You had had your first day of college right? How was it?” she asked, ignoring me like she always did when she heard something she didn’t want to. It wasn’t worth fighting her on. Getting into an argument about who said what was always a waste of time and by the end of it, I was always exhausted.

“Fine,” I said.

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell your mother?”

“What do you want me to say?” I sighed.

“You could give me a little bit more than one-word answers as a start. Are you getting up to trouble again?”

“No.”

“No more fights? You were lucky that Hunter didn’t press charges you know.”

I groaned. “That was a year ago,” I complained.

“He’s got the teeth you knocked out replaced, did you know that? He told me he forgave you though. He doesn’t hold it against you. He knows that you’re having a hard time.”

As if I gave a shit about his forgiveness. Hunter wouldn’t have to have fake teeth if he backed off when I told him to. He was one of Bishop’s youngest sycophants who, probably with Bishop’s encouragement, decided to throw little comments about me being a tranny and sinful and how if I came to see God’s light, I could be “normal.” Words didn’t work, but punching him did, even if I got a nasty black eye and a broken finger out of the deal. I considered it a worthwhile trade. He swapped to talking shit behind my back at high school rather than to my face. It was a slight improvement. “I’m thrilled to hear it,” I said.

She looked into my room and saw my backpack on my bed. “Where are you going?”

“A friend's.”

“What friend is this?”

“You don’t know them. They’re from the college,” I said.

“Are they normal?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“They’re not faggots then?”

I cringed. “Can you not?”

“So they are,” my mom said.

“What part of what I said told you that?” I asked.

“If they weren’t faggots you would’ve just said no. I know the crowd you hang out with. They’re a bad influence.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Honey, I think you should come back to the church. Bishop wants to talk to you and I really think-”

“No.”

She crossed her arms. “Don’t interrupt me, I wasn’t finished. Just let me talk.”

I shut my eyes and prepared myself for the long-winded lecture she was about to give me. Most of it was going to be plagiarized word for word from whatever Bishop had told her to say to me. I knew it because the few times my mom had forced me to talk to the man, he repeated almost everything she already told me. The first time it happened to me, it was surreal. I had no idea how she could remember that much of his sermons. It didn’t take long for it to stop being surreal and start being obnoxious. Once it hit that stage, I learned how to tune her out and go somewhere else while she talked at me.

“Fine. Talk,” I said, slouching against the door frame.

She started and I didn’t listen. I caught a few key phrases and words. Things she’d told me before. Something about “destroying my body” and how I had been a “handsome young man.” Things about sin, God, and salvation. All of it was trash. I didn’t believe a word of it. If there was a God, then he was a sadist. He was sitting up in heaven on a throne made of gold, putting people in the wrong bodies, creating misery, and laughing at the results. I wanted nothing to do with him.

“-and that’s why I think you should come back. Everyone still misses you,” she finished.

“Great. I’m still not going back and I’m going to leave now,” I said.

My mom blinked, then took off her glasses and squinted at me. “You didn’t listen to a word I just said, did you?”

“Are we done or not?”

“No. There is more we have to talk about. You don’t get to treat this house like a hotel.”

I walked back into my room and slung my backpack over my shoulder. I opened up the window and swung a leg out of it.

“Matthew, if you leave you’re not getting any money from me or your father, do you understand that?”

“Yup.”

“You’re going to regret this,” my mom warned.

That was her classic line. Another empty threat that only meant that she was going to keep treating me the same as she had since I came out when I was 14. There was nothing to be scared of. We were going to do the same song and dance until one of us died. “Bye mom,” I said, and started to lower myself down the trellis, shutting the window behind me.

“You’re going to break that,” my dad warned below.

My window opened again and my mom leaned out of it to glare down at me. “Loyd, you’re not going to just let him leave are you?” she said.

“What would you like me to do?” my dad asked.

“What do I- are you being serious? He’s going to run off with more people who are going to tell him what he’s doing to himself is fine! You’re okay with that?”

“No.”

“Then do something!”

“What’s that something?” he grunted.

“You can figure it out! That’s your job! I swear it’s like you don’t even care!”

“Of course I care, I just want you to tell me what to do because I’ve exhausted all of my ideas,” he said. I reached the bottom of the trellis and straightened up, then met my dad's eyes. He took a sip of his beer. “I’m not going to beat him and he doesn’t listen to anything else. There is nothing we can do. Even God can’t help those who don’t want to be helped. If he wants to live in filth, that’s his choice.

The same boring speech as usual. I couldn’t bring myself to care about it anymore. I started to walk back around the house, leaving my parents to their domestic bliss.

“Matthew come back!”

I shot a text to Willow asking them if I could come over and get ready. Less than a minute later, they told me I could. I let my shoulders relax. The night was salvageable. I was going to go do something fun with my friends. I was going to get drunk and high and not have to worry about getting caught and yelled at for it. This was going to be a good night.

I’d make sure of it.


	3. Stones Unturned - 1.3

“She lives here?” Willow asked.

“Yeah. It’s a bit intense, isn’t it?”

“I love it.”

"I thought you might.”

Annabelle’s house— no mansion— was straight out of the past era. There were no visible renovations done to it, but unlike most of Hope’s older buildings, it was in decent shape. It was a tall, three-story building with a balcony that wrapped around the outside front of the first and second floor. The roof hung over the third-floor balcony providing cover, and six massive columns stretched from the ground floor to the roof to support it. The first floor sufficed with a huge porch that only stopped halfway around each side of the house. The house had a boxy shape to it and was painted an age worn white. All of the windows except for the ones on the third floor had blackout curtains strung over them, and the balcony on the second floor was littered with old leaves and debris that had never been cleared away. Three cars were parked on the driveway in front of a modern, three door garage. I recognized Annabelle’s expensive sports car and Elise’s commuter shitbox, but who owned the third luxury car was a mystery. My guess was Darius. He seemed like the type to own something more expensive than any college student should.

“Looks like we’re late,” I said.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

We were late because Willow had gone out to feed a small group of crows near their dorm and was late coming back. I didn’t mind though. It gave me extra time to get ready. For once, I felt good about my appearance. My dress clung to what little curves I had nicely, and my makeup did a good job at concealing the more masculine aspects of my face. Willow’s preparations hadn’t been nearly as intensive. After they got back from feeding their crows, all they did was brush their hair and pack a change of clothes.

“You texted them?” Willow asked.

“Yeah, they know we’re here, but we can just go in,” I said, walking up the porch to the front door.

“Is that a good idea?” Willow asked.

“It’ll be fine,” I replied and opened the door into a pitch-black foyer. It was a type of darkness you usually only saw in basements at night.

“Why is it so dark?” Willow asked.

“No idea. Something about her sisters I think,” I answered. I walked inside and activated the flashlight on my phone, then shined it around the room. We were in a small sparsely directed foyer. Rich, plush carpet blanketed the floor, but the walls were empty of any paintings. Further ahead, the room opened up into a massive room with a pair of two grand sweeping staircases in the center. They curved up to the second and then the third floor. I could imagine a smug aristocrat standing on the stairs and staring down at his guests as they filtered into his house.

“You’ve been here before?” Willow asked.

“Once,” I replied. “I know where I’m going. We have to get up to the third floor. That’s where Annabelle’s room is.”

We went up the stairs and when we got to the top of the stairs on the third floor, we found Annabelle standing with her arms crossed, looking every bit like the smug aristocrat I’d imagined.

“So you decided to let yourselves in?” she asked.

“I told you we were here,” I said.

“I was coming to let you in.”

“Well, now you don’t have to. We all win.”

Annabelle craned her neck and looked at my backpack. “What the hell do you have in there?”

“Stuff,” I said. “Clothes. Weed,” I added as a peace offering.

“Did you bring anything?” she asked Willow.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I was busy and I didn’t know what you wanted.”

Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Fine, follow me,” she ordered. She led us down a long hall, and then into what seemed like an old school living room. Antique couches next to end tables circled a table that was piled high with different bottles of liquor, glasses, and junk food. Darius lounged on a love seat sipping a glass of wine with his feet kicked up on Arif’s lap. Arif had a small amount of clear liquid in his glass and was looking at it with disgust. Elise was knelt by the table, rolling a joint. She looked up and waved when we entered.

“Hey ya’ll! I was starting to get worried you weren’t coming!” Her eyes darted to me and she gave me a quick once over. “Serenity, you look really good too! I love that dress!”

“It does suit you,” Darius purred. He took another sip of his wine. “Very pretty.”

The compliment felt good, especially from someone as attractive as Darius. I hadn’t thought too much about it in the library, but he looked good splayed at on the couch sipping his wine. He was the picture of comfort and grace. It was vain and conceited, but in a subtler way than Annabelle usually was. Darius didn’t seem like he had a thing to prove. He was like the cat who had permanent access to the cream. “Thanks, you look good too.”

Darius swung his legs off of Arif’s lap and sat up, swirling his wine around in his glass. “Damn right I do. Now get yourself a drink. Both of you. I’d recommend the wine. I brought it.”

“I don’t like wine,” I said.

“That’s because you’ve never had good wine.”

Willow walked over to the table and picked up the bottle and poured themselves a full glass, then gave it a sniff. Their nose wrinkled. “It smells bad.”

Darius looked offended. “I promise that’s the best wine you’ll smell in your life.”

“You’re so up your own ass. Everything on the table is alcohol. It all works the same. Don’t let the wine snob fool you,” Annabelle said.

Willow took a sip and immediately stuck their tongue out. “This is terrible.”

“Unbelievable. No taste the lot of you,” Darius said, shaking his head. He held out his hand. “If you don’t want it, give it here.”

Willow took another sip of the wine. “No.”

“No?”

“It all works the same, right?” they said. “I want to try.”

“You can smoke too,” Elise said. She held up a freshly rolled joint. “It’ll make you cough, but getting high is way easier.”

“I’ll do that instead,” Arif said. He set his glass on the end table and slid onto the floor. “Whatever I’m drinking tastes awful.”

“That’s because it’s straight vodka. I told you to mix it with something,” Annabelle said.

“Nothing can make that better. It’s fucking gross,” Arif griped.

“Oh you pussy,” Darius said. He got up and plucked Arif’s glass from the table, then threw it back and swallowed it down with one swallow. “That was barely more than a shot. We can do better,” he said. He leaned forward and grabbed the vodka, then filled up two shot glasses. “Any takers?” he asked, holding up one of the glasses.

“Why not?” I said, walking forward taking it from his hand.

He tapped his glass against mine. “Bottoms up.” Darius and I tossed back the shots. The vodka was much smoother than I expected. A pleasant warmth settled in my stomach and I set my glass back on the table, only for Darius to fill it up again. “So tell me, what is the business about you finding a dead body in a cemetery?”

“Wait? That was you?” Elise asked.

I frowned. “How do you even know about that?”

“Drink your shot first,” Darius said, sliding the glass back into my hand. He let his hand linger on mine for a second longer than needed. I almost blushed but forced myself to be cool. I wasn’t a regency era romance. A bit of skin contact wasn’t scandalous. I took the shot just as a lighter spark and the scent of weed filled the room. I looked down and watched Elise take two long drags from the joint, before handing it off to Arif. He took it and inspected it like it was a puzzle.

“So is this like a cigarette?” he asked.

“Just put in your mouth and inhale. You’re gonna cough, but that’s fine,” Elise instructed. “Please don’t slobber on it though.”

Arif looked at the burning joint skeptically, before he plopped it into his mouth and took a deep drag. A second later he was hacking his lungs out, his head buried in his elbow, the joint held up over his head. I had to give him credit. At least he hadn't dropped it. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Perfect!” Elise cheered, slapping hard at his back. “Willow, you want this?”

“Sure.” Willow took the joint and copied Arif, then started to hack up their lungs as well.

“It’s just a little smoke. You’re not dying,” I gasped through my laughter.

“It burns,” Arif coughed. “And it smells really bad. How do you get away with doing this in your house? Aren’t your parents going to get mad?” he asked, looking up at Annabelle.

Annabelle plucked the joint from Willow’s hand and breathed it in while Elise started to roll a new one. “They’re not home,” she said.

“What about your sisters? Didn’t you mention those?”

“They won’t come upstairs and I don’t give a shit how they feel about it. This is my floor of the house, I can do what I want.”

“Oh? You have a whole floor to yourself?” Darius asked. He moved back to the loveseat and continued sipping his wine. “That’s impressive. How did it end up like that?”

“It’s the way the house works. I get the top floor, Taylor gets the middle, and Bailey gets the bottom,” Annabelle replied.

“So what, your parents just don’t live here?” Darius pressed.

“Yeah.”

“Where do they live.”

“Not here,” Annabelle said, dodging the question, though to be fair, I didn’t think she knew where they were now either.

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Darius said.

Annabelle took another drag. “You’re a fucking gossip, aren’t you?”

Darius put a hand over his heart. “Me? Never.”

“He’s full of it,” Arif said. “He knew everything that happened at our high school. Sometimes I think he knew more than the principal.”

“I did, but he was an idiot, so that’s not an accomplishment.”

Annabelle handed the joint to me and I took a long inhale. “If you like stupid rumors, you’ll love Hope. The people here can’t shut the fuck up,” I said, breathing out the smoke.

“Oh really?” Darius asked. He leaned forward and poured me a glass of wine, then presented it to me. “Trade me?

I passed off the joint to Darius, in exchange for the wine, and took a long drink. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Willow made it sound, though I still sided more with Annabelle than Darius. All alcohol was the same. It all made me feel flush and warm and made my thoughts slow and my tongue loose, especially when I was smoking too.

"So, tell me about the horror of Hope," he said.

“The churches are fucking terrible for one thing,” I replied.

“What do they do?” Willow asked.

“Ruin lives, start rumors, sue people,” I listed. “Too much bullshit to even name really. The drama never ends."

“The two biggest Catholic and Baptist churches here hate one other,” Elise said cheerily. “It goes back to the civil war, when the Baptists thought the Catholics were helping slaves escape. They weren’t, but the accusation stuck. The Catholics retaliated by exposing the priest or deacon or whatever the fuck they call it for cheating on his wife. They haven’t stopped fighting since.

“It’s gotten bad again recently,” Annabelle purred. “We had a mayoral election recently and each church supported a different candidate. Not that they were very different, the churches were just being spiteful. In the past few months, there have been multiple accusations of pedophilia from both sides, and then the Baptists accused the Catholics of causing Hope’s missing people.”

“What? Missing people? That’s a thing?” Arif asked.

“Yeah, Hope is a hotbed of people vanishing. Usually, it’s homeless people, but sometimes someone else up and disappears. By the time people notice they’re gone, it’s too late to do anything about it and no one cares enough to find out what happened,” I said.

“Don’t the police do something about that?” Arif asked.

“Oh they do, but guess what? Some of the people who went missing were found. None of them wanted to talk to the cops about what happened or why they disappeared. They didn’t even want to talk about Hope. I think they realized they were rotting away in Georgia's shittiest town and decided that rotting in a slightly less shitty place was a better use of their time,” Annabelle said.

“Is that the consensus?” Darius asked. He took another puff of the joint.

“Share that,” Elise scolded. “I’m watching you.”

He smiled and handed it back over.

“No. Everyone else thinks someone is kidnapping them,” Annabelle answered.

“Accepting that Hope is awful is harder than making up stories about missing people,” I said. “In any case, neither of the churches are doing it. The Catholics aren’t movie villains and I’ve spent enough time listening that I’m pretty sure it’s not him and his group either.”

“Bishop?” Arif asked.

“Head of the Hope’s First Baptist Church. The biggest one here,” I said.

“I can’t believe the head of the Baptist church is named Bishop,” Darius said. “His parents must’ve had a strange idea of humor. Poor bastard.”

“Don’t feel sorry for him. He’s a piece of shit.”

“And how’s that?” Darius asked.

“Too many ways for me to list. He likes to try and ‘fix’ people. My parents were big fans of that,” I said.

“Serenity has a bit of a bad reputation among both churches actually. They really don’t like her,” Annabelle said.

“I see a queer trouble maker with religious parents. A classic. If they thought they could fix you, I’m guessing they’re not into what you’ve got going on there,” Darius said, gesturing at me.

I took another long drink. “Yup.”

“I get it. My parents aren’t really cool with it either. They say some weird shit about gay people. I’m not out to them though,” Arif said. He dragged out each of his words for a little bit longer than he needed to. His eyes were red and he was obviously high. Elise handed him the nearly burnt down joint and he took another drag. He didn’t cough as much this time. “You know, one time they caught me and Darius cuddling and he managed to convince them we were just being friendly” Arif giggled. “I can’t believe they bought it.”

“Having people trust you is a benefit of being instantly likable,” Darius replied.

“I don’t think you’re instantly likable,” Willow said. “You’re pretentious.”

Darius blinked in surprise. Everyone else started laughing. Darius rolled his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, but even he couldn’t hide that he was embarrassed.“Yeah, yeah laugh it up. You look like you picked your entire wardrobe out of Hot Topic,” Darius retorted.

“The place in the mall?” Willow asked. They looked down at their outfit. “I thought that was band t-shirts.”

“It’s more than that and you’re the poster child for it.”

Willow didn’t seem offended and when Arif handed them the stub of the joint, they inhaled happily. “Okay,” they said finally.

“Annabelle, can I smoke in your house?” I asked, tapping my pocket.

“Only if you give me one,” she replied.

“What? Aren’t we doing that now?” Arif asked.

“Cigarettes,” I said, pulling out my pack and plopping one in my mouth. I handed the other to Annabelle.

“Those kill you, you know,” he said.

“I’d certainly hope so,” I said, lighting one.

“God, you really are edgy, aren’t you? Is the pink just to throw off the scent?” Darius asked.

“What? No. I just like pink,” I replied.

“Sure you do.”

“Your life sounds exciting. You find bodies in the woods and- wait that’s true right? Darius said it was true but sometimes he’s full of it,” Arif asked. “Weren’t we going to talk about that? I thought Darius asked about it.”

“He did,” Willow confirmed.

“Yes, you were going to share what happened with the class before we got distracted. Why don’t you fill us in?” Darius asked.

If I was sober, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it, but with my head as fuzzy as it was, it was easier to do. It was just a body after all. There was nothing special about it and no reason to let it bother me. “Tell me how you know about it first,” I said.

“ _Everyone_ knows about it. The police were not very quiet apparently,” Darius replied.

“A cop told you?”

“No, that’s what the people I talked to said they heard it from though. They all had the same story too, so I’m pretty some cop told people it was you who was there.”

“I was there too,” Willow said. “We both were. They didn’t mention me?”

“No, I only heard about Serenity,” Darius said. He pouted at me. “Now are you going to tell us what happened or not?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that exciting. Willow and I went for a walk to the cemetery where they used to bury slaves. We were going to the tree where people used to get lynched and that’s where we found the guy hanging from it. He looked like a rich white guy, no idea what he doing there. Looked like he killed himself though,” I said.

“You know, it’s a bit rude to go tramping through a graveyard where people like that are buried,” Darius said. “Not a very romantic place for a date either.

“It wasn’t a date and it wasn’t romantic,” Willow said.

“Even if that wasn’t the intent, I personally can’t think of anything more romantic than finding a body together. What a bonding experience,” he said.

“We went there because some people think the tree is haunted. It’s got a weird vibe,” I replied.

“Oh, I see. Ghost hunting,” Darius said. He waved a hand. “Go on.”

“There is nothing left to say.”

He huffed. “Well, that was much less exciting than I hoped.

“I warned you.”

Elise finished rolling her next joint and started to smoke it. “So you two are a thing?” she asked, pointing back and forth between Darius and Arif. I was glad we were changing topics. The more I talked about last night, the less I enjoyed myself.

“No, no. We’re not very compatible,” Darius said.

“But you cuddle? How does that work?” Annabelle asked. She sat down on the floor next to me and reached for the bottle of vodka on the table. I expected her to take a glass, but instead, she took a drink straight from it.

“You don’t cuddle your friends? That’s a tragedy.”

“So wait, you weren’t lying when you told Arif’s parent’s that then?” I asked.

“No, it wasn’t a lie. It really was friendly. We only fucked once before that and that was enough to realize it wasn’t going to work.”

Arif three his head back and stared up at the ceiling. He covered his hands with his face. “Darius please, can you not?”

“What? The people demand the truth,” Darius snickered.

“It’s so awkward,” Arif complained.

“It’s fine. I’ve slept with two people in this room. No one cares,” Elise said.

“Oh, so that's what's was going on between you three. I’d thought it was something like that. Ya’ll got some tension between you. It’s kind of hot,” Darius teased. “I love me a love triangle.”

“We’re not talking about this,” Annabelle said.

“But-”

“No. We’re not talking about it,” Annabelle repeated, cutting Darius off. “We’re getting drunk, not talking about who fucked who.”

“We can do both,” Darius objected.

“Drink,” Annabelle ordered.

Darius grinned and finished off his wine. “Only if you do too.”

She took another swing from the bottle. “If it gets you to shut up, sure.”

After that, things started to melt away. We made our way through two more joints and I kept drinking, but it was fun. The conversation went back to being light and not serious. We traded stories, stupid jokes, and the juiciest rumors we knew. At some point, I’d make my way to a couch. Willow sat next to me. Arif and Darius went back to their love seat, leaving Annabelle and Elise to sit together on the last one available. The conversation started to die down the later at night it got and I’d lost the thread of whatever it was we were talking about now 10 minutes ago. It was getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open. I shut my eyes and let my head hang at an awkward angle in the air as I started to drift off.

“If you want to sleep, you don’t have to do it here,” Annabelle said, jolting me back awake.

“I’m not tired,” I lied.

“You’re gonna fuck your neck up if you sleep like that. I was trying to help,” Annabelle said.

It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but then the best idea for how to fix that popped into my mind. “Hey Willow,” I started.

“Yes?”

“Can I put my head on your lap?”

They thought for a minute then nodded. “Sure.”

I shifted on the couch, then through my legs over the side of it and rested my head on Willow’s lap. They were warm. “Hey Willow, why do you do that thing with your hair?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“You like, twirl it,” I said, grabbing my own hair as a demonstration. A laugh bubbled out of my throat. This was all so ridiculous. I was ridiculous.

“Reasons. Sometimes it’s soothing.”

“Is it soothing if you do it to other people?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You can do it to my hair then,” I offered. “I don’t mind.”

“Remember, she said it wasn’t romantic,” Darius stage whispered.

I squinted up at Willow. They were attractive, sure, but even in my intoxicated state, I knew I wasn’t into them like that. It was too hard to imagine myself kissing or fucking them. I turned my head over and looked at Darius and then Annabelle. A pulse of heat spread its way from my stomach to the rest of me. They were hot. Both of them. Everyone in the room was pretty in some way, but the two of them took the cake. It was all too easy to imagine kissing them and more. I just barely stopped myself from opening my mouth and blurting out something to that respect.

“It’s not. We’re just friends.” I looked up at Willow. “Right?”

They ran their fingers through my hair and nodded. “Yes.”

“There you have it!” I called out to Darius.

“I’m convinced,” he slurred back. “Cuddling can be platonic. We’re all doing it.”

We were? I looked back over at Annabelle and Elise and rolled my eyes. They shifted and were now wrapped around one another like snakes and the way Annabelle was looking at Elise was anything but friendly. Elise had to know that, but she wasn’t pulling away. The two of them were about to make the same stupid mistake they had a hundred times before. At least Annabelle was. Elise had no skin in the game. When she woke up tomorrow, she wasn’t going to be upset.

Annabelle was.

I looked away. I wasn’t going to say anything. It wasn’t worth it.

Willow combed their hands through my hair again and I shut my eyes. Laying on their lap and letting them pet me made me feel like an oversized house cat, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It’d been so long since I’d gotten to touch anyone for more than a second at a time. Willow’s warmth underneath me and their hand stroking my hair was like another drug in my system. It, along with the weed and booze, allowed my head to become pleasantly empty. I didn’t have to think about my parents or how hungover I was going to be tomorrow. I didn’t have to think about school or the body we found or any of the weird shit that happened in Hope. All that mattered was right now.

I wished I could capture the moment and bottle it up forever.

_

My hangover the next day was almost enough to make me regret last night. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my brain. My back and neck were sore from sleeping on Annabelle’s couch and my throat was bone dry. I death gripped my necklace, then let out a tiny sigh of relief as it relieved the edge of my hangover. It wasn’t a vast improvement by any means, but it was enough to allow me to sit up and open my eyes.

Sunlight filtered into the room from the windows and I squinted against it, hissing in pain as I adjusted to the light. When my vision cleared, I saw Darius sitting on the same couch as last night scrolling through his phone and drinking from a bottle of water. No one else was in the room. Darius was already dressed for the day in a literal dark black suit with a blue undershirt. I had no idea how it was possible. Darius had drunk the most out of all of us, but he didn’t seem hungover at all.

“Water is on the table,” he said, glancing up from his phone.

I groaned and snatched one off the table, then drained in it a few long, desperate gulps. It made me feel more alive, but the water settled heavily in my stomach and made me feel like I was about to vomit.

“Where is everyone?” I managed to ask. The thing I remembered was laying my head on Willow’s lap and letting them play with my hair. I must’ve fallen asleep like that.

“Arif and Willow went back to campus. They got up way before the rest of us and didn’t want to wait around. They sent a text,” he said “I don’t know where Elise and Annabelle went, but I’m guessing they’re still here.

A memory of Elise and Willow tangled up on the couch flickered through my brain. It wasn’t hard to guess where they ended up. I stretched, then went over to my backpack and got out a change of clothes, toothbrush, and my pills. “Where is the bathroom?” I asked Darius.

“Room right next to this one. the door is open,” he replied.

Going through my morning ritual and getting on fresh clothes made me feel a bit less hungover. It also helped that Annabelle had a massive bottle of ibuprofen sitting on a shelf inside of her bathroom mirror. I tossed two back along with my hormones and excited at the same time Elise emerged out of a door further down the hall, a sheet wrapped around her shoulders. We made eye contact and she gave me a little wave, then put her finger to her lips.

 _You didn’t_ , I mouthed.

She smiled brightly and made her way down the hall towards me. “What’d you say?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“Was that- please tell me you didn’t come out of Annabelle’s room.”

“Oh, I did.”

Of course, she did. Why did I even ask? “What’s up with the sheet?” I asked.

“I left my clothes in the living room up and I can’t find my pants or shirt in her room right now. I’d look for them, but I don’t want to wake her up.”

“You fucked her didn’t you?”

“Yup.”

I dragged my hands down my face. That meant Annabelle was going to be extra touchy today. She always was when it came to Elise. “You- why would you do that? Why?”

“She’s hot?” Elise said like the answer was obvious. I guess it kind of was. Annabelle was undeniably gorgeous. “She came onto me first and said it’d be fine. I took her word for it."

“You know she’s lying.”

Elise shrugged. “I don’t know that actually, she knows her feelings better than I do. I’m not going to play guessing games with her. If she says it’s fine, then it’s fine. I’m not going to second guess her.”

She still should’ve known better. I’m sure Annabelle had promised everything would be fine the last ten thousand times they’d done this same song and dance. Elise was being purposefully obtuse, but she was always like that. If you told her something, she’d go with it and act as if it was true so long as it didn’t hurt her. “Alright. Whatever. Go get dressed,” I said.

She gave me a mock salute and strutted into the living room. I followed her in.

“It’s a bit early for this, don’t you think?” Darius asked as soon as he saw Elise. “Not that I’m opposed, but I’m a bit hungover for whatever is going on here.”

“I’m just getting changed,” Elise replied, then let her sheet drop to the ground, leaving her in only her underwear. I should’ve expected something like this from her. Elise and modesty were two concepts that didn’t go together.

Darius ran his eyes over Elise and cracked a grin. “Looks like you had a good night.”

Elise crouched over her bag and started taking out clothes. “Yeah. Did you have fun?” she asked.

“It was good. I’m hungover, but I’m fixing that,” he said, holding up his bottle of water.

“There are painkillers in the bathroom,” I said. I tried to keep my eyes off Elise, but it was hard to not steal glances. Giving her attention only encouraged her, but knowing that didn’t make her any easier to ignore. I wasn’t even looking because I was into her. I was looking because I wanted to figure out what made her so comfortable and at ease in her skin. Of course, there was nothing there. Elise was attractive, but it wasn’t like she was a supermodel. Her confidence didn’t come from her looks. All of it was her own, born out of some internal love of herself that mystified me. I couldn’t imagine ever being comfortable enough in my skin to allow people to openly look at me like she did.

“I already took some thanks,” Darius said. He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back on the couch. “So, do you like to remind your old conquests of what they’re missing?”

“That makes me sound bad,” Elise replied. She took out a pair of shorts and wiggled into them. “It’s just some fun. It’s not serious. I’m not trying to make Annabelle feel bad.”

“You’re leaving awful fast for that to be the case,” Darius pointed out.

Elise put her backpack over her shoulder and snatched a water bottle from the table. “Nah, I have stuff to do today. It’s already kind of late. Text me when our next meet up is, can’t wait to do this again,” Elise said. “Also, when ya’ll leave, be quiet. Annabelle’s sisters are usually asleep during the day, but you don’t want to deal with them, trust me.”

“What’s their deal?” Darius asked.

“They're nasty and they hate everyone except for one another,” Elise said as she walked towards the door. “Not much else to say about them. Tell Annabelle I said bye! Make sure she drinks plenty of water!” she called out before she disappeared out of the room.

“She’s interesting,” Darius said, once the sound of her footsteps faded down the stairs.

“What are you doing here still? Don’t you have better stuff to do too?” I asked.

Darius shook his head. “No. The only other place I would go is my dorm. I’m happy to sit here all day if Annabelle lets me.”

“The dorms aren’t good enough for you?”

“Fuck no. Don’t you have one? They’re awful,” he said.

“I don’t. I live with my parents.”

He winced in sympathy. “Unfortunate”

“Yeah, but why are you in a dorm anyway? Aren’t your parents rich or something? They could’ve gotten you an apartment.”

He scoffed. “Freshmen have to live on campus and my parents aren’t rich.”

“Bullshit.”

“If I was rich, I wouldn’t lie about it,” Darius countered.

“Your clothes look more expensive than anything I own and that car does not seem cheap,” I said.

“And?”

I frowned. “What do you mean 'and'? You need money for that.”

“Loans exist. Credit cards, second mortgages, ‘borrowing’ money from relatives. There are plenty of ways to buy things you can’t afford. My parents are masters at it. It’s almost impressive.”

“How has it not caught up to them?” I asked.

“It has, but they were hoping they would die before it did.”

“That makes no sense.”

Darius held up a finger. “Actually, it does. My mother has a very persistent ovarian cancer and my father’s Huntington’s disease has slowly started to set in, which is his own death sentence. Once the doctors told my mom she wasn’t ever going to beat her cancer, she and my dad started to blow through all their money, figuring that they may as well have fun while they’re still around. Unfortunately, neither of them have managed to die yet and their debts are catching up. They fucked themselves well and good,” Darius explained dispassionately like he was talking about the weather.

“That sucks?” I tried, attempting to read the mood.

“Maybe. They’re still going to die soon, so it might still be worth it for them. Either way, I don’t have to deal with their debt and I get plenty of money while I’m alive. It’s a win-win.”

“Don’t you care that they’re going to die?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“I used to, but they’ve been telling me they were going to die soon since I was 12, so it’s hard for me to take seriously anymore. They also aren’t the biggest fans of my love of dick, but they’re too busy wasting money and dying to make too much of a big deal out of it. Like I said, we’re all winners here.”

“Your family is kind of fucked up,” I said.

“Probably, but since we're airing personal tragedies, why don’t you share your family history? It sounded interesting.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Lame, what about Annabelle then? You know what her parents' deal is?” he asked.

“Not really. All I know is that they’re rich and they travel a lot. She doesn’t really talk about them and I don’t ask,” I replied.

“They’re rich and they decided to buy a house here of all places?”

“Yeah. I don’t get it either.”

“Why are you talking about me?” Annabelle called out, her voice echoing down the hall. It made me realize that Darius and I were speaking louder than I’d thought.

“You’re interesting,” Darius called back.

Annabelle entered the room, her head held high. She was dressed in a short light blue nightgown that was too unwrinkled and perfect to be what she worn to bed. She glared at us through bloodshot eyes and ran a hand through her knotted, messy hair. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” she asked.

“Yeah. Elise just left,” Darius confirmed.

Annabelle took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut when they opened, they were much colder. “If she and everyone else is gone, why are you two still sitting in my house?”

“Drink some water,” Darius said, pointing at the bottles on the table.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“We can talk about it after you drink,” Darius said, surprisingly stubborn.

“You’re in my house, you don’t get to tell me shit.”

Darius stood up, brushed some invisible dust off his clothes, grabbed the bottle of water, and held it out to Annabelle. “Elise told me to make you. When you’re done, I’d like to make a proposition,” he said.

Annabelle took the bottle of water with an irritated growl and a roll of her eyes, then started to drink. She didn’t stop until it was empty. She wiped her mouth, then glared back at Darius. “Out with it then, what’s your proposition? ”she asked.

“Well, my dorm is garbage and Serenity wants to dodge her shitty parents. Considering you have a whole floor of the house to yourself, I was hoping you’d let us crash here for a bit.”

I perked up. “I never said I was trying to avoid my parents.”

“You have a bag full of clothes and you told me your parents weren’t a fan of you being queer. Call it an educated guess,” he replied.

“You think I’m going to let you live in my house for free? Is that seriously what you’re asking?” Annabelle questioned and crossed her arms.

“You got it,” Darius said and gave her a wink.

Annabelle pretended to think about Darius’s request, then shook her head. “No.”

Darius clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Alright, not for free then. We’ll trade you.”

“Trade me what?”

“You look like you crawled out of a grave. Serenity can cook and I’ll clean you up and pamper you. Sound like a deal?”

Annabelle stopped and seemed to actually consider Darius's question now. I hoped she’d bite. If all I managed to get was a free meal out of this and a place to hang out for the morning, it would be worth it. “Try it out for breakfast. You can make us leave if you want to after that,” I said.

Annabelle dragged a hand down her face and sighed. “Fine. Go cook. The kitchen is at the end of the hall to the right of the balcony doors. You can’t miss it. And you,” she said, turning to Darius, “better be damn good at pampering.”

“Trust me, I am,” Darius assured.

I took that as my cue to slip out of the room. I was shocked that Darius had managed to get past Annabelle’s defenses that easily, but he did have the advantage of talking to her when she was hungover and had a run in with Elise. Still, if I tried to bride Annabelle like he had, she would’ve laughed me out the door.

Annabelle's kitchen was small and modern, a stark contrast to the rest of the house. It had to have been added in recently. I scrounged up ingredients and started to make eggs, grits, and bacon, with plenty of butter. It was the best hangover food I could think of at the time. As I cooked, I couldn’t help but think about how disgustingly rich Annabelle’s parents for her to have her own kitchen. Was her relationship with her sisters so toxic that they couldn’t even share one? She'd never talked much about them, but it seemed pretty obvious things were bad.

As I finished plating our food, Annabelle and Darius walked into the room. Annabelle looked ten times better than she had this morning. She had her makeup back on and her hair twisted into her typical braid. She was dressed in a nice pair of jeans and a loose blue blouse that suited her perfectly. Darius winked at me and gestured to Annabelle.

“Presenting your queen,” he said, with an exaggerated bow.

“Food,” I replied, pointing at the three plates.

We took the food back to the living room and ate in a comfortable silence. When we finished, I gartered up all the dishes and dumped them in the sink to deal with later. When I got back to the room, I saw Annabelle and Darius sipping wine.

“It’s not even the afternoon yet,” I said.

“And? It’s the weekend,” Darius replied. “Relax.”

“By drinking?”

“By relaxing. I don’t even have enough for a full glass, it’s not like I’m getting drunk,” he said. “You look like you could use one yourself though. You’re too tense. Would you like a glass?” he purred.

 _Fuck it_ , I thought.

“Sure.”

We spent the rest of the morning like that, lounging in Annabelle’s living room and nursing the last dredges of Darius's wine. I expected it to feel like I wasted the day, but sitting and chatting with Annabelle and Darius was nicer than I ever expected. Both of them were funny in their own way. Or maybe I was just laughing because of the wine. I figured it didn’t matter. I was happy and relaxed for once. No need to ruin that.

Eventually, Darius wandered off to cook an extremely late lunch. Darius returned around an hour later, three bowls of pasta in his hands. It was one of the best things I’d eaten in months. I was used to eating sandwiches or microwave meals at 3 AM in my parents' kitchen. Compared to that, Darius’s food may as well have been ambrosia.

Halfway through eating, Darius cleared his throat, capturing mine and Annabelle’s attention. “Does anyone see the problem with this picture?” he asked.

“No?” I replied.

“We’re eating pasta and we have a distinct lack of wine,” he said, pointing at his now empty bottle. “Who knows how we’re getting more?” he asked, then looked right at me.

“Why are you staring at me?”

“You’re the local delinquent aren’t you? Fill us in,” Darius purred.

“Do ya’ll have fakes?” I asked.

“No, do you?” Darius countered.

“No. My last one got confiscated,” I said

“By the police?” he asked.

“No, by an asshole liquor store owner named Charles.”

Annabelle looked at me like I was stupid. “Of all the places to try your luck, why there?”

“It wasn’t my best choice,” I admitted. “Believe it or not, I’m not perfect.’

“How about a bit of revenge then?” Darius asked, a sly grin creeping onto his face. “I have a fun idea.”

I looked at him sideways. “A fun idea?”

“Yes. Hear me out.”

_

As I shoved another bottle of liquor into my backpack, I took a quick moment to reflect on how fucking stupid this plan was. Everything about it was reckless. I was friends with people who were more than willing to blow through money. We could’ve found someone willing to buy liquor for us, but instead, I was shoplifting. I should’ve stopped and walked back out the door.

Instead, I moved down the wine aisle and grabbed an expensive looking bottle.

What drove me on more than the desire for the alcohol, was the exhilaration I got from doing something I wasn’t supposed to and getting away with it. It was a childish motivator, something I shouldn’t have been able to or okay with admitting to myself, but the adrenaline and thrill coursing through me shut out my more rational thoughts. It helped that the liquor store we were stealing from was Charles’s, one of Hope’s most notorious assholes.

I grabbed another bottle of wine, then zipped up my bag and hurried toward the backdoor of the shop. There was a sign on it that claimed an alarm would sound if it was opened, but I knew from experience that almost most of those signs were total bullshit. Even if this one wasn’t a lie, I’d be out the door and gone before Charles could stop me. I risked a glance behind me and saw Darius and Annabelle still standing there, arguing with Bishop.

“So you’re sure that you’ve never sold to anyone underage?” Annabelle asked for the third time.

“Yes! I haven’t! I never had! I collect fakes!” Charles screamed, jabbing a finger back at the wall covered in fake IDs behind him.

“Sir, to be fair though, those fakes are so obvious they’re impossible to miss,” Darius objected. He’d gone the extra mile to play his part. He had a little notebook and was writing notes down while Charles shouted.

“What the hell are you talking about? Some of these are damn good! I have an eye for this shit!” Charles shouted.

I pushed out the back door and to the back of the shop. It didn’t go off. We’d done it. Our heist was successful. I adjusted my backpack and speed-walked away from the shop and down the tiny little hill behind the plaza Charles’s shop was in. After I fought through the massive bushes and weeds that filled up the slope of the hill and cut it off from the street below, I’d be free.

As I picked my way through the weeds, I wondered how long Annabelle and Darius were going to keep screwing with Charles. It had taken less than a minute to get him going, but I had a feeling that was because Charles was already hammered when Annabelle and Darius walked in. If he was slightly more sober, he might’ve been able to see through the bullshit story they were feeding him and saw me slip in the door in the middle of all the arguing. Annabelle and Darius were obviously not from the school paper and I knew just as well as Charles did that he’d never sold a drop of booze to a college student in his life. If he thought you were a student, even if you were 21, he wouldn’t sell you anything. I was positive that Charles’s real problem was hating anyone who wasn’t above 30 and as miserable as him. The upshot of that was, if you were as miserable as him, then Charles would never deny you your booze.

It was a problem.

A while ago, the city council had tried to help cure Hope’s alcoholism problem and mandated fines against bars and liquor stores that sold alcohol to anyone who was already drunk. Of course, the enforcement was spotty at best. It only really applied to the bars around campus and even then most places got off with a warning. Some of Hope’s more reputable liquor stores had taken it seriously and stopped selling to some of Hope’s more well-known drunks and college students, but Charles stubbornly refused to do the same. He loved the miserable, old alcoholics that came into his shop. They were his best friends. One of them could vomit on his floor, pass out for thirty minutes, wake up, and he’d still sell them a bottle of his finest when they woke up.

Right before I emerged from the brush and onto the street, I tripped over something hard and heavy. I tried to catch myself, but all the bottles in my bag made it impossible to catch myself. I fell to the ground, my backpack slipping off my shoulder and tumbling to the ground beside me.

 _What the fuck tripped me_? I thought. I scrambled onto my knees and scanned the ground. My breath caught in my throat when I spotted what it was. A leg covered in a dirty pair of jeans stuck out from the inside of one of the bushes a bit back from the road. My eyes went wide. There was no fucking way. No fucking way this could be happening. Finding a dead body once was an easy to explain coincidence. I’d gone to a landmark in Hope known for death after all. Twice though? Twice was insane. How the fuck had I literally tripped over a corpse?

I stumbled to my feet and plowed through the last of the bushes and onto the sidewalk. There was a heavy, incessant pressure pressing down on my chest. My hands twitched and my legs became shaky. It all added to my panic. I needed to _go_.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Annabelle, forcing myself to keep moving, to not think about the corpse that was less than a hundred feet away. The roar of the cars around me the late evening barely registered to me. All that mattered was stopping myself from breaking down and getting the fuck out of this mess.

“Hi, I’m sure whatever you're calling about is important but I’m in the middle of-”

“I found another body,” I said quickly. “We need to go. Leave.’

“What?”

I stumbled forward and my necklace slapped against my chest. Touching it yesterday had calmed Willow down. It should work the same for me. I clutched it tight in my hand and shuddered as the edge of panic drained into it, leaving my head just enough that I could repeat what I said to Annabelle more slowly.

“Okay, we’re leaving,” she said. “Meet us where we parked.”

“Stay on the line with me.”

“Fine.”

Neither of us spoke as I made my way down the sidewalk, then into another plaza that hosted a small local grocery store, another liquor store, and a smoke shop. Darius’s car was parked as far away from the stores as he could get and seeing it gave me a surge of relief. I was here. In a little bit, I wouldn’t be alone. I wasn’t near the body anymore.

I was safe.

I leaned against the car and took in deep greedy gulps of air to try and calm my racing heart, my hand still clutched over the necklace. The more my panic ebbed, the less useful the necklace became, until touching it made me worse instead of better. I tore it off and shoved it deep into my pocket. As soon as it was off, the world came back into focus. My thoughts no longer raced out of my control and I didn’t feel like I was on the edge of a panic attack. The only thing that remained was the occasional twitch of my muscles and the heavy feeling in my chest. Neither of them was going to go away soon. My anxiety tended to linger, even after whatever caused it stopped.

Five minutes passed before I spotted Darius and Annabelle rounding the corner at a brisk jog.

“Where is the bag?” Annabelle called out.

My bag. Shit. I’d forgotten about it in my rush to get away from the corpse. “It fell off when I tripped over the body. It’s back by it,” I said.

“We’re going back for it.”

My eyes widened. I shook my head fiercely. “Fuck no. I’m not going anywhere near it again. I’ve had enough for one day.”

“You can’t leave it there. If the cops find it, they’re going to connect it to you, and then you’re going to have a lot of questions to answer. We need it back,” Annabelle replied.

“I want the booze too,” Darius added.

“Someone is dead and that’s what you’re thinking about?” I asked.

“Not just that. I also want to see the body,” Darius replied.

“What- is this a game for you? A fucked up joke?” I asked.

“I’m not sure if I would use the word joke, but there is something about that’s funny in a morbid sort of way, don’t you think? You have a knack for finding dead people.”

I squeezed the back of my neck, trying to calm myself down. Darius wasn’t helping things. I needed to ignore him and think. I didn’t like the path my thoughts led me down. No matter how I looked at it, Annabelle was right about needing to get the bag back. It had my name written in marker on the tag inside. Goddammit.

“We get the bag and go. That’s it,” I said.

“You can take a minute. We’re not pressed for time,” Darius said. “Because it looks like you’re still freaking out.”

The longer I waited, the less I was going to want to go back. I had to do it now before I lost my nerve. “I’ll be fine, let’s get it over with.”

Darius didn’t look like he believed me, but he didn’t fight me on it. “Lead the way then,” he said, gesturing towards the sidewalk

I gave him the finger as I walked past him.

Annabelle and Darius kept up a light, casual conversation behind me as we doubled back to the hill. It was a nice reminder that the world kept spinning no matter how many bad things happened. After we got the bag, I could leave an anonymous tip with the police about the body, and wipe my hands of the incident, just like I’d done at the cemetery.

“Is anyone watching?” I asked once we reached the foot of the hill. I glanced behind me. There was no one around us except for the cars on the road.

“What do you think?” Annabelle said.

“There are cars though,” I pointed out.

“They’re driving. No one is going to pay attention to us. If anything, standing here looks weirder. Let’s get on with it,” she ordered.

I took a deep breath and pushed through the bushes again. Right away, I spotted my bag fallen on the ground, a foot away from the leg sticking out of the bush. I grabbed it, but when I turned to leave, I ran into Darius, who for some fucking reason, was getting closer to the corpse.

“Do you think you’re Nancy Drew or something? What the fuck are you doing?” I demanded.

“You think we could pull it out?” he asked, slipping by me and going up to the bush.

“No! We’re not touching it!”

Darius parted the top of the bush the leg stuck out of and looked inside. He gagged right after. “That sure is a body,” he choked, covering his nose and mouth with his arm.

Annabelle walked up to his side and peered into the bush as well. Her face turned a little green and she looked away. “Looks like he was an alcoholic,” she said.

“He’s-”

“Dead. He’s not going to hurt you,” Darius said. “It’s fine.”

Nothing about this was fine, but curiosity led me to take a half-step forward, stand on my toes, and peak into the bush as well. It was even worse than I imagined. The corpse was fresh. Whoever he’d been, he hadn’t been dead for long. He had long, greasy brown hair, an unkempt beard, and looked a lot older than he probably really was. His eyes were half-closed, with just the dull whites of his eyes showing. His hand was wrapped around an empty plastic container of vodka. The corpse reeked of the early stage of decay, piss, and shit. A few flies crawled around on his face and chest.

“Alright, we saw it, can we go now?” I asked.

“He’s got a necklace,” Darius pointed out and stuck his head further into the bush. “That looks like real gold.”

I got closer and found the necklace he was talking about. It was a thin gold chain that hung over the hollow of his throat. I was shocked the man died with it. Homeless people usually didn’t wear expensive jewelry. Darius leaned further into the bush and then scratched at the golden chain, leaving a thin white line on it. He made two passes before he jerked up and away from the body and shook out his hand like it’d been burned.

“What the hell is your problem?” Annabelle asked.

“It’s real,” Darius said finally starting to sound nervous. “It’s real and touching it is weird.”

“Weird?” What are you talking about?” I asked.

“It’s like touching bottled up depression,” he replied.

His description reminded me of the necklace in my pocket, and my mind turned back to Madame Grace and her jewelry. Was it one of hers? Was that why it felt that way? Jewelry wasn’t magic, it was supposed to feel normal. Only Madame Grace’s seemed to break that rule. I bit my lip. I needed to know. If it was one of Madame Grace’s then I needed to call Willow and tell them to get rid of their necklace.

I walked up to the bush, then bent over and brushed my fingers across the gold. At once, I was hit with a wave of the darkest emotion I’d ever felt. It was like I’d plunged through ice and there was no way back to the surface. I gasped for air but was only greeted with the noxious smell of death. My vision narrowed. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I was stuck. Stuck in the ice and I was going to die like this. Oh my god, I was going to die.

“Hey, you’re fine, you’re fine,” someone soothed. They took my backpack off, then wrapped their arms around me and pulled me into their chest. “You’re alright. We’re leaving.”

Distantly, I was aware that I was now being herded forward by whoever was at my back, but I didn’t care where I was going, so long as it was away from the body and the cursed necklace. Whoever was behind me chanted a stream of words in a calming tone, but it all sounded like nonsense to me. A second voice joined the first and began to speak, but I still couldn’t make out the words. I was under the ice and they were too far away.

We ground to a halt. Whoever had been pushing me forward held me limp in their arms. Someone moved in front of me. “Serenity, breathe!” they ordered. Their voice was much sharper than the first. More demanding. They touched my face and moved my chin up. “Look at me.”

I did and saw a pair of cold blue eyes staring into my own. “Name five things that you can see or hear or feel,” the voice commanded.

My tongue was heavy in my mouth. I swallowed. “You,” I answered.

“Who am I?”

I squinted. Blue eyes and blond hair. Pale skin. Stern expression. “Annabelle?” I guessed.

“Yes. It’s me. More things now. Come on,” she said.

“Outside?”

“You can do better than that.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on the world around me. The ice started to melt. “Cars,” I said.

“Good, keep going.”

“Darius is holding me?” I asked.

“I am,” he confirmed.

My next breath was easier. I looked around. “Buildings. A parking lot. Liquor store.” I looked to my left and sighed in relief. “Darius’s car.”

“There we go. You’re fine,” Annabelle assured me. She dropped her hand from my face and stepped away. “Can you name more?

I started naming everything around me and finally, I broke through the ice. The world returned to focus. I’d just had a panic attack because I touched a necklace after robbing a liquor store. I was fine though. Alive. I wasn’t going to die.

“Darius, please let me go now,” I said.

His arms uncoiled from around me and he stepped back. I missed their presence immediately. I didn’t realize how comforting having him close was. “You good?” he asked.

“As good as I’m going to be,” I replied. There was a tremor in my voice that I couldn’t hide, but it would only go away with time.

“What happened back there? Why did you freak out?” Annabelle interrogated.

“If I wanted to find out why someone had a panic attack, I too would start yelling at them,” Darius said.

“I’m trying to figure out what happened. Shut up,” Annabelle barked.

“You understated what the necklace was like,” I said to Darius.

“Did you want me to wax poetic about how shitty it was? I thought my description was pretty apt.”

“So you’re telling me that you touched a necklace and it made you panic? That’s what happened?” Annabelle crossed her arms and leaned against the car. “Can someone tell me how that works?”

“You don’t believe us,” I said.

“I never said that.”

“You’re implying it.”

“I might be.”

“I have a necklace in my pocket. You want a taste of what it’s like?” I asked, not bothering to hide my anger. I still felt raw and Annabelle’s skepticism wasn’t doing anything good for my mood.

Annabelle’s eyes flicked up to Darius, then back to me. “The one you got from Madame Grace the town nut job? That necklace? It’s magic too?”

“Take it out of my pocket then. It’s in the left one.”

“Why can’t you give it to me?”

“What? You scared? If you think it’s just a necklace it should be fine,” I snapped.

Annabelle narrowed her eyes, then reached into my pocket and pulled the necklace out. She dangled it in front of her face and her lips pressed into a thin line as her shoulders went stiff. “I’m not freaking out,” she said, but there was an edge to her voice that she couldn’t hide.

“How's it feel then huh? Tell us what it's like,” I said.

Annabelle held the necklace away from her and let it dangle by the tip of a finger. “It’s creepy,” she admitted.

“The one back there was worse.”

“Darius, take it,” Annabelle said.

“Fuck no, I don’t want to touch it,” he said.

“I don’t want it,” Annabelle said.

“Put it in your pocket then,” Darius replied.

“Where do you see a pocket on me?”

“Figure it out. I don’t want it back,” I said.

“Darius, it’s your turn,” Annabelle said. She stepped forward and thrust the necklace into his face. He thought for a moment, then took it and shoved it into the pocket of his slacks as fast as possible.

“Now how about one of you tell me who Madame Grace is? Because right now I’m in the dark,” he said.

“She’s a fake psychic,” Annabelle answered.

“She said she was a witch,” I corrected.

“Okay great. Let’s say she’s a witch. Why do you have a witch's necklace?” he asked.

“She hands out jewelry to the people who visit her shop sometimes,” Annabelle said.

“Why?” Darius asked.

“No one knows.”

“More mystery. I love it,” Darius said dryly. “Serenity, if touching that thing feels so awful, then why were you and Willow both wearing one and acting completely normally last night? What gives?

“It was nice before, now it’s not. I don’t know how it works,” I said. “When she gave it to me, she said I’d want to return it though. Maybe it’s cursed or something.”

“A curse. Sure. Why not? That’s about as believable as the rest of this,” Darius said.

“You can’t be serious,” Annabelle replied.

“You said she was a fake psychic.” Darius tapped his pocket. “But this? This doesn’t seem fake to me. A curse is as logical an explanation as any.

“Let’s get rid of it,” I said. “We’ll go now. I’ll tell Willow. They need to get rid of theirs too.”

“Ooh more club bonding, I love it,” Darius said. He unshouldered my backpack and held it out to me. “Put this in the trunk, please. I don’t want to lose it.”

I shook my head. “I can’t believe you care about this still.”

“After today, you’re going to need what’s in that bag,” Darius said. He rounded his car and slid into the driver's seat. “Now, if we’re done wasting time, let’s go ditch the demon necklace.”


	4. Stones Unturned - 1.4

I’d never been more sure the necklace was cursed than right now. The trip back to the dorm buildings to get Willow involved running over a squirrel and almost getting hit by some asshole in a lifted pick up truck when they blew by a stop sign. Even the short walk downtown to Madame Grace’s shop was worse than usual. It felt like the four of us fielded more hostile glares in 5 minutes than I usually did in a half a month.

“Why are we standing here instead of going in?” Willow asked. They still had their necklace on and were toying with the beads. I couldn’t convince them to take it off. For some reason, theirs was fine. I didn’t touch it to confirm, but both Annabelle and Darius did and reported that it didn’t feel good or bad. It just felt like a necklace. That was still enough to trigger the alarm bells in my head. It shouldn’t have. There should have been something more.

“We’re building tension,” Darius said.

“Can you be serious for a single minute in your life?” I asked.

“No.”

“We don’t need to be serious, we’re just getting rid of the necklaces,” Annabelle said. She gathered herself and leered at Madame Grace’s shop, then started to cross the street towards it. Let’s get it over with.”

We all followed and shoved our way into Madame Grace’s shop. This time, she was sitting at the table, paging through a worn looking paperback. Only candles scentless candles burned inside, instead of incense like last time. She didn’t look up when we entered. “Back so soon?” she asked.

Darius tossed the necklace on the table. “That’s yours,” he said.

“It wasn’t yours though,” she replied. She licked a finger, folded the page of her book, and looked up. “It’s only been two days since I gave that to you Serenity. What have you been up to, child?”

“Someone you gave one of these to died,” Annabelle said.

Madame Grace frowned. “I’m sorry? Repeat that please.”

“We found a body with a gold bracelet on it. When I touched it, it made me feel worse than I ever had in my life,” I said.

Madame Grace nodded slowly. “Who was the person you found?” Madame Grace asked.

“A drunk,” Annabelle said. “No one we knew.”

“What did they look like?” Madame Grace asked, turning her attention to Annabelle. Her eyes were sharper and more cutting than even Annabelle’s, but somehow Annabelle managed to meet her gaze.

“White dude with dirty clothes with long hair and scraggly beard. He looked old,” Annabelle said.

“And the bracelet?”

“It was a chain of gold. Really delicate. Seemed a bit too expensive for a homeless person to have,” Darius said.

Madame Grace’s eyebrows knitted together and her expression soured. It made her look much older than she usually did. “Do you know how he died?” she asked.

“So you did have something to do with it,” I said. “You knew him.”

“I might’ve,” Madame Grace admitted. “But I am allowed to be worried for the people of Hope, even if they’re poor. Sometimes, the homeless come to my shop in Hope’s I can read their fortunes for free. I like many of them. I don’t want to see them die.”

“Bullshit,” I replied.

She narrowed her eyes at me. My chest locked up and I gasped for breath. “I am no liar Serenity. Do not accuse me of being one. Understand?” she said.

I nodded and she looked away. As soon as her eyes were off me, I could breathe easy again.“What are you? What did you do to the necklaces? What…what is this place?” I asked.

“My home,” Madame Grace said.

“It’s a shack,” Annabelle retorted.

“To you maybe, I quite like it,” Madame Grace said.

“You shouldn’t.”

“Just because you don’t like your home, does not mean I don’t like mine,” Madame Grace replied.

Annabelle blinked. Whatever she was going to say died on her tongue. Madame Grace had somehow left her speechless with a few words. Madame Grace looked to Willow and smiled. “Willow, are you going to return yours too?” she asked.

Willow twirled their hair in thought. “I don’t know.”

“You weren’t there for Serenity and their friends’ adventure?”

“No. They didn’t tell me what this was about until we came in,” they said.

“Sorry, I just- I forgot. I wanted to keep you safe. There is something _wrong_ with the jewelry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Willow said. They toyed with their necklace. “Mine is not the same as it was before though either. Will you explain why?” they asked Madame Grace.

“Would you like a new one?” Madame Grace asked. She swept her eyes over all of us. “All of you can have one if you’d like.”

“In the two days, I had that damn thing I found two bodies, so no. I don’t want a new one, none of us do,” I said.

“Well-”

“Shut up Darius,” I snapped.

Madame Grace set her hands palm up on the table, rattling the hundreds of pieces of jewelry around her wrists and arms. “Serenity, you’re quite panicked. Come here, I can relax you and perhaps we can have a more productive conversation,” Madame Grace said. She crooked up a finger and made a come hither gesture.

“Answer Willow’s question first,” I said.

“It is not the same, because the emotions you are putting into it are not the same,” Madame Grace said.

“I don’t understand,” Willow said.

Madame Grace hummed. “Perhaps an example will make it clearer. She pointed at Annabelle. “Serenity’s friend here does not have a high opinion of my home. She doesn’t like it at all in fact. Tell me, how do you think she feels when she’s here.”

Willow frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Guess,” Madame Grace pressed.

“You don’t like it?” Willow asked Annabelle.

“Obviously” Annabelle replied.

“If they don’t like then… bad?” Willow guessed.

“Correct.”

“Are you going somewhere with this?” Annabelle asked.

“I’m answering a question, be patient,” Madame Grace said. “Now, that principle remains the same. If you grab your necklace whenever you feel bad, you will associate it with a cure for bad things. But we get used to things. If Serenity's friend came to my shop every day, she would grow to be indifferent towards it, just as you have grown indifferent towards your necklace. Simple really,” Madame Grace explained.

“So are they not magic then?” Darius asked.

“I never said that,” Madame Grace said.

Annabelle let out a frustrated groan. “You’re screwing with us. Magic isn’t real. You’re messing with everyone’s heads.”

“I am?” Madame Grace said

“Yes.”

“Allow me another demonstration then. Let me read your fortune,” Madame Grace replied.

“What are you going to do, guess my zodiac sign? Talk about what it means to be a Capricorn?” Annabelle said.

“You’re a Capricorn?” Darius asked.

“Something better,” Madame Grace assured.

Annabelle walked forward, sat down in one of the chairs, then leaned across the table. “Fine. Prove you're the real deal then.”

“I don’t think you really tell fortunes,” Willow said. “You do something else.”

Madame Grace hummed in thought.“It depends on what you see as fortunes. I think what I do could count. First, would you like to tell me your name?” Madame Grace asked.

“Annabelle.”

“Thank you, now Annabelle, would you please set your palms face up on the table.”

“What, you can’t just look at me and do it?” Annabelle asked.

“Touch makes the process much easier.”

My skin itched. I wanted to leave and have this whole day to be over. When we walked in here I’d thought we were going to throw Grace’s necklaces at her and leave. I didn’t think Annabelle was going to push for a demonstration. Despite my apprehension, I was curious. Madame Grace wasn’t just proving herself to Annabelle, she was proving herself to all of us. I was lucky enough to get a second demonstration of what she called magic.

Annabelle set her palms on the table. “Do it then.”

“This is a bad idea,” I warned Annabelle.”

“Let her, I want to see what happens,” Darius said.

Madame Grace set her hands on top of Annabelle’s then squeezed so tight that it looked painful. Annabelle stared into Madame Grace’s eyes without flinching. Madame Grace closed her eyes and took a breath. When they opened, they were the same piercing things that saw through me.

“You’re lonely too. I suppose that’s a common theme among all of you,” Madame Grace’s eyes flicked away from Annabelle’s to the rest of us for a brief second before returning, “they’ll be good for you. They are a way out. A way for you to feel less abandoned in the world A reminder that you do not always have to be alone.”

“This isn’t a fortune,” Annabelle said, her voice hard.

“You are like a vine around a tree. You need stability, an anchor, but you choke the life out of what you have bound yourself to. You must learn to control yourself. When you try to grip too tightly people will slip away or wither. You must be better. You cannot-”

Annabelle ripped her hands away. “This isn’t a fucking fortune and I don’t give a fuck about what you’re saying!” she shouted.

“Then why are you upset?” Madame Grace asked calmly.

Annabelle bared her teeth like she was a wild animal about to tear Madame Grace apart. “You’re fucking with people. You try and find what makes them tick and twist it for your entertainment. I know you. I see who you are,” she spat. Her whole body shook with a barely contained rage.

Madame Grace slid off a bracelet, set it on the table, and pushed it forward. “I believe that will make you feel better child.”

Annabelle stood up and slammed her hands down on the table, leering down at Madame Grace from her superior position. Madame Grace looked back unbothered. It was like she was watching a toddler throw a tantrum, but Annabelle’s pain wasn’t fake or exaggerated. Madame Grace had reached out and poked something sensitive, something at her core.

Just like she’d done to me.

“If you ever come near me again, I will ruin you,” Annabelle threatened. She swept the bracelet off the table so hard it hit the wall before it fell on the floor.

“We’ll see about that.”

Annabelle turned on her heel and stormed out of the room. Madame Grace smiled. “Would anyone else like a reading?’

“Willow, drop the necklace and let’s go,” I said.

Willow toyed with the beads on it for a few seconds longer, before they slid it over their neck and dropped it onto the table. Once it was no longer touching them, they blinked rapidly in confusion.

“It’s magic,” Willow said. It was as if they were making the observation that the sky was blue or that water was wet.

“Everything is touched a bit by magic,” Madame Grace replied.

“You said I could have a new one?” they asked.

“I did.”

“One that calms me.”

“I will give you a one that’s new and untainted by emotion,” Madame Grace said. They pulled off a wooden bracelet and handed it to Willow. “Would either of you like one?” she asked us.

“We’re leaving,” I said, grabbing Darius’s arm and pulling him out the door before he could say yes.

“I’ll see you soon,” Madame Grace called back.

Stepping back into the sunlight outside stung my eyes, but it was a welcome break from Madame Grace’s shop. The sun and the heat made perfect sense. There was no mystery to them. Annabelle was leaning against the wall next to the door, her arms crossed and eyes staring straight ahead. She didn’t acknowledge any of us when we came out.

“She draws off emotion,” Willow said as they exited the shop. “She read how Serenity and I felt just like she did Annabelle and-”

“She didn’t read my emotions, she just lied,” Annabelle objected, but Willow ignored her and kept going like she hadn’t spoken.

“-the necklaces and jewelry she gives people seems to absorb whatever emotion we put into them. Yours made you calm until you found two dead people and it absorbed your bad emotion. That’s why it was so hard to touch.”

I pulled out my cigarettes and Darius held up two fingers. I stuck one in my mouth and gave him two like he requested.

“Alright, I don’t not believe you, but you understand that this is a hard pill to swallow? Madame Crazy in there may or may not be a murderer and now magic is a thing? It’s a bit much to take in,” Darius said.

I lit my cigarette. “Maybe she’s just fucking with us,” I said, but my words felt hollow even to me.

“She’s not. Magic is real and she is a witch. There are no other conclusions we can draw,” Willow replied.

Annabelle pushed off the wall and brushed past us and started to walk back towards the dorms. “She’s lying. Magic isn’t real. It never was and it never will be.”

“What explanation do you have?” Willow asked. We all started to follow Annabelle down the sidewalk.

“I told you mine,” she said.

“Yours makes no sense.” Willow glanced at me. “Serenity, you know I’m right, don’t you?”

I bit my lip. “You might be. I don’t know. I wish none of this had happened,” I said.

“You can act like it didn’t,” Darius said. Suddenly, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close, then pressed his cheek against mine. I had no idea what he was doing until I saw him carefully press the end of his cigarette to mine. When his lit, he pulled away again and blew out a cloud of smoke. “We don’t ever have to go back to her and you never have to accept jewelry from her again. Problem solved.’

“I am not ignoring the existence of magic,” Willow said.

“Then why don’t you go back there and beg Madame Grace to feed you more bullshit for the rest of the day?” Annabelle said. Darius handed her a now lit cigarette. She snatched it from him and put it in her mouth with more anger than should’ve been possible.

“I’m considering it,” Willow said.

“Don’t,” I said.

“You think she’ll hurt me?” they asked.

“She knew whoever died. She’s involved in something we don’t want to touch,” I said.

“We’re already involved,” they countered. “Since we are, I am going to find out more. I want to learn magic,” they said. They sounded determined. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that they were going to try. They’d already accepted more jewelry from Madame Grace and they seemed set on finding out its secrets. I wasn’t going to fight them on it. I didn’t want to think or argue about it anymore, especially with Annabelle there.

“Are you busy?” I asked Willow.

“No.”

“Can we go watch crows and talk before you make a choice then?” I asked.

They considered then nodded. “If you would like.”

“You’re leaving us?” Annabelle asked. She paused mid-step and looked back at me with narrowed eyes. I looked away.

“I need a break from all of this,” I said.

“You’re the one who stumbled across the body,” she said.

“Cool, I don’t care. I’m taking a break and looking at fucking birds. You two can go off and do whatever.”

“If you-”

“Serenity gave us free smokes, give them a break,” Darius said. He walked forward and linked his arm through Annabelle’s. “We can have fun without them.”

Annabelle rubbed at her temple. “Fine. Go do whatever. Darius, let’s go,” she said, giving his arm a tug.

We walked together in an awkward heavy silence before we split up by the dorm buildings. Darius gave me a little wave as he and Annabelle walked towards where he parked his car, while Willow guided me down a path that slithered behind the dorms.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I found an old barn yesterday. It is in a field past the woods here. The crows like it,” they said, pointing at a stretch of trees that sectioned off the dorms and the fields behind from the street.

“It’s the burnt out one, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes, you know about it?” Willow asked.

“Yeah. In middle school, people used to go there and say they saw ghosts.”

“Did you ever go?”

“I was one of the first to.”

“Did you ever see a ghost?” they asked.

“No. It’s just a building. A sad one at that.”

“I like it. It’s interesting. The crows enjoy it more.”

“I never noticed,” I replied.

“What did you mean when you said you needed a break?” Willow asked as we began to break through the tree line.

“A break from thinking about magic and dead people,” I said.

“Why?” Willow asked.

“Why? Are you being serious?”

“Yes, why does it bother you?”

“Doesn’t it bother you?” I countered.

Willow chewed over the thought. “I did not see what you saw today, but I did not like finding the man in the cemetery. It bothers me a little,” they said. “Can you tell me how you found the body? I’m curious.”

“You really want to know?” I asked.

“If I didn’t want to know, I would not have asked.”

I took a deep breath, then recounted my morning. I’d thought talking about it would make me uncomfortable, but instead, it was nice. Putting words to how I felt and what happened made it less terrifying. Willow listened silently as we dodged our way through the trees, then popped out on the road that ran behind the dorms. To the left, there was an apartment complex, but straight ahead led to another small patch of woods and a field behind it.

“I see,” Willow said after we crossed the street. “You said you were going to call the police about the body. Did you do that already?” they asked.

“Not yet, I’ve been kind of busy,” I said.

“Are you going to?”

“Yeah at some point. Probably tonight,” I said. Internally, I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t have to call. I could let it be someone else's problem.

“Good. I am sorry you had a bad day,” Willow said, and then that was that. They dropped the conversation and we stepped into the field. Willow stopped at the edge of it to admire it. The field was a bit bigger than a football field and was overgrown with weeds and massive blades of grass. The burnt barn was the only thing of real note in the clearing. The walls of it were blacked by fire and ash and half the roof was missing. The half that remained had the words had one and a half large white Es blackened with ash painted on it, with the word city painted under it.

Like Willow said, the field was teeming with crows. Some perched on what remained of the roof while dozens of others found trees at the edge of the field or were pecking at the earth around the barn. It was the most crows I’d ever seen in one place.

“I am making friends with them,” Willow said. They led me through the field and close to the barn, then stopped around ten feet away and pulled a small bag of birdseed from their pocket. They poured a good bit in their hand, then threw it over, scattering it across the field. Crows started to feast on the bits furthest away, only getting closer when Willow and I made no moves to get closer.

“You think they’re going to remember you?” I asked.

Willow tossed another hand full of seeds into the air. “Yes. They can remember faces.”

Some of the crows on the roof barn flew down and joined in on the feast. Every now and then, one of the birds would jerk it’s head up and stare at one of us, before it went back to eating.

“Were you serious about what you said back at Madame Grace’s? About learning about magic.”

“Why wouldn’t I have been?” Willow asked. Their eyes were on the crows and they slid the birdseed back into their pocket. A few more flitted over and joined in the feast.

“I don’t trust Madame Grace.”

“I don’t trust her either,” Willow replied. “But she knows things we don’t. Things I want to know.”

“You’re making it seem so simple,” I complained.

“It is simple.”

“It’s- I- I don’t know,” I said. I sat down on the ground among the weeds. “I hate this.”

“I thought you wanted to watch the crows?” Willow asked.

“No, not the crows just, everything. Hope. The way things have been going. I thought everything would get better when I got to college. That maybe I could get a dorm and be fine and that the world would work out. But that’s not happening and I’m starting to think it never will.”

“You don’t have to pay for a dorm though. That’s nice.”

“It’s not. I have to live with my parents instead.”

“They’re bad?”

“Yeah. Very bad.”

“Hmm,” Willow said. They sat down beside me. “I’m sorry?” they offered. They sounded unsure if it was the right thing to say.

“It’s fine. You didn’t do anything. I’m just bitching.”

“That’s okay. I don’t care,” Willow said. “Would you like to help me name the crows?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to tell them apart.”

“That’s fine. I can. Would you like to help name them?” they asked again.

“Sure? Why not?”

We spent the rest of the day like that. When it grew dark, more crows than I’d ever seen started to perch on the barn or in the trees around it. It must’ve been the spot they all roosted in at night. There were so many inky black bodies in the night, all together and content. It reminded me of the fortune Madame Grace gave me about being bored. I didn’t feel very bored. I wasn’t sure how that could apply to me. My whole life had been nothing but excitement and one bad choice after another. The past two days seemed to highlight that. Maybe Annabelle was right about Madame Grace being a fraud and all of this was just the result of bad luck.

It was a comforting thought, but a part of me suspected that’s all it ever would be.

I took out a cigarette and started to light it, but a sharp piercing look from Willow caught me in my tracks. “What?” I asked.

“You’re on HRT?” they asked.

“Yes?”

“You’re not supposed to smoke. It increases your risk of blood clots and makes it less effective.”

“I thought you didn’t care?” I asked.

“I don’t care if people smoke, but I would like to tell you what happens if you do.”

I twirled the cigarette between my fingers. I was already familiar with what they’d told me. It was another reason among the other hundreds that I should stop. Maybe this was a sign that I should. Another reminder that I probably didn’t need to be slowly killing myself every day.

I put the cigarette back in my pack.

“Willow?”

“Yes?”

“Are you lonely?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Bored?

“Sometimes.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Does what? The boredom or the loneliness?”

I looked over at them. They were hard to see in the dying of the light. All I could make out was the shadow of their profile. “Both I guess.”

“The loneliness does.”

“So, do you think Madame Grace was right about what she told you then? About your fortune?” I asked.

Willow turned to look at me. I sensed that they were looking at my face, but theirs was too heavily shadowed for me to find their eyes. I assumed mine were the same.

“I think the feelings are real. There is a truth to what she said. But feelings change. Or they can change. I have changed. I don’t think Madame Grace can account for that.”

“Isn’t that what she implied in her advice? To change?” I said.

“The change she suggested might be right now, but wrong later,” Willow said. “I do not think she can see the future.”

“So you don’t think she was wrong then?”

“No, not completely.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it served as a needed dose of reality when I wanted to do nothing more than take Darius's suggestion and pretend nothing had ever happened. I pulled out my phone.

“I’m going to tell the police about the body, but I’m not going to tell them my name. It will be anonymous,” I said.

“Okay,” Willow replied. I didn’t even know if they were paying attention to me anymore. Their eyes were on the crows.

I started dialing but hesitated right before I put the call through. Would they be able to track my cell phone and find out it was me who called? Should I really be doing this?

“Are you going to call?” Willow asked. Apparently, they were paying attention.

“Yeah, I am,” I said, and put the call through.

_

My first class was somehow worse than any class I’d had in high school, which should’ve been impossible. Every second that went by felt like an hour. The droning voice of Professor Sheridan, my pre calc teacher, was a punishment fit for the ninth circle of hell. He kept his back turned to the class and he muttered into the board while he drew shapes and numbers with chalk. Occasionally, he’d glance back at the class like he forgot we were there before he turned back to the board and kept writing.

Everyone in the class, sans one or two people at the very front, had stopped paying attention. Some of them were napping or messing with their phones. Professor Sheridan must have noticed, but he didn’t seem to care. I got the sense that everyone in the class could’ve gotten up and left, and he would’ve chugged on solving problems for himself on the board.

The sour mood since Saturday wasn't helping my mood either. Finding that body by the liquor store and dealing with Madame Grace had allowed something dark to take up residence in my chest. It drained all of my energy and made me want to sleep all day. I hated it. I didn’t want to call it depression, because it usually went away after a few days and only came back when something bad happened, but it sure as hell felt like it. It made me want to do something. To act. To make myself feel alive instead of like an empty husk.

Sitting in class and listening to Professor Sheridan drone on was not making me feel more alive.

“Any questions?” he asked as he put the final touches on whatever equation he was supposed to be teaching us. One woman raised her hand. Professor Sheridan looked dead at her, then turned back to the board. “In that case, I’ll be moving on to show you how we apply this equation in a more practical context,” he mumbled.

The woman dropped her hand, then turned to look at the rest of the class, disbelief written on every inch of her face. She shifted her mousy brown hair out of her face, revealing a lazy eye that made her seem even more bewildered. It was like she’d just witnessed something that violated the laws of physics. A few other students shrugged helplessly at her.

I stood up from my desk and grabbed my backpack. This class was a complete waste of time. I was losing brain cells by listening to Professor Sheridan drone on and on, and if he wasn’t even going to answer questions, then why bother staying? I’d have better luck reading the textbook and showing up for exams rather than sitting in his class. Maybe that’s why attendance wasn’t required. He expected people to not show up.

My suspicions were confirmed when Professor Sheridan made no attempt to acknowledge my existence as I loudly exited his class and shut the door much harder than I needed to. I wanted to be frustrated that I was getting fucked over again, but at this point, it was par for the course. Registering late meant I got the worst professors, the worst time slots, and the worst classes, all without a way to fix any of it. If my parents had filled out the FAFSA sooner and my loans had actually hit my account on time like they were supposed to, none of this would’ve been a problem.

The door opened behind me and the same woman from before stepped out, a scowl on her face. “His reviews were bad, but I thought people were exaggerating.”

“You registered for this class willingly?” I asked.

“No, I needed to take pre calc and he was all that was open. I guess that’s what happens when you put off classes until the last minute.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Mary by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Serenity,” I said, shaking it.

“Have you eaten yet?” she asked.

“No, I got up late and had to rush to class.”

“You have a meal plan?”

“No.”

“You have class soon?”

“My next one is at 10, so I have an hour,” I said.

“Cool. My next class is at 11:00. How about I take you out for breakfast? I have guest passes to the dining hall,” she said with a smile. It didn’t quite reach her eyes. Those were more focused and intent. It was the same look Annabelle sometimes got when she was scheming. Mary wanted something from me. This wasn’t typical politeness and there was no one else around, so she wasn’t keeping up appearances.

I was interested.

“We’re going to eat in the dining hall?” I asked.

“Yeah, I get a few free guest passes. I don’t mind spending them.”

“Sounds good to me, lead the way,” I said.

We traded small talk as we made our way to the dining hall and I took the opportunity to get a better sense of her. She was a bit shorter than me and seemed good at blending into the background. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a black hoodie, even though it was still summer, but she didn’t seem uncomfortable in her body. She moved and talked with confidence and laughed at all of my jokes, even though most of them were bad. I would’ve thought she was flirting with me if I didn’t think she had another motive. I almost wished she was flirting though. She had a girl next door vibe to her and I found her cuter than I probably should have.

The dining hall was starting to fill up when we got to it, but Mary managed to snag a quiet table from us in the back corner of the room. We both went to get our food, and I piled my plate high with biscuits and gravy. which was probably the most edible thing in the whole room. The eggs that were being served looked like they were one solid mass of liquidy yellow gunk and the bacon was thin and overcooked. When I got back to the table, Mary was already there, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Not going to eat?” I asked, taking a seat across from her.

“I already ate. This is just for you,” she said.

“It kind of sucks,” I said, pushing around the biscuits on my plate.

“Yeah. The food won’t get better either.”

“So why are you paying for it?” I asked.

“I’m not.”

I frowned. “You said you had guest passes?”

“They’re leftover from last year when I was stupid enough to buy into this place. The food isn’t really what I’m here for anyway.”

“What are you here for then?”

She reached into her backpack, pulled out a notebook, and set it on the table. “I work for the school paper. I was wondering if you’d let me interview you about the body you found.”

I sighed. Of course, that’s what she was here for. “Prove to me you’re a reporter or whatever,” I said.

“Prove it?” she asked. She sounded confused.

“Yes. You could just be saying that and I’m actually talking to a total stranger with a weird murder obsession,” I replied.

“Who would pretend to be a reporter for the school paper?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Someone’s probably done it before,” I said, trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible.

“Fine,” she said. She pulled out her phone and whipped through several screens quickly before she held it up for me to see “Here is an article I wrote.”

I skimmed over it quickly. “’ Fraud at Bursar’s Office leads to several arrests,’” I quoted. I looked at the date. “This was written before I saw it on the normal news.”

“Yeah. I got to it first,” she said, not bothering to hide how proud she sounded of it. “I did all the research myself. The news stations were coming to me to ask me if they could use parts of my story.”

“I’m surprised the university even let you publish it.”

“They tried to stop me. They really didn’t want it getting out there to everyone that the University lost millions because no one was checking the books like they should’ve. Naturally, people too stupid to check up on their books were also stupid enough to send me plenty of emails threatening retaliation if I kept poking around. I saved them and told them that if they did anything they said they would, I’d leaked the emails. They let it go after that, but that was the only reason it got through,” she said. She shut off her phone. “I don’t think the university is going to be as upset about this one, but they are trying to keep it quiet.”

“If that’s what they’re trying to do, they’re doing an awful job of it,” I said.

“Not really. Right now it’s a rumor. People don’t know what to think. That’s why I want you to tell me what happened.”

“So people are talking about me?” I asked.

“Of course. People are trying to figure out who you were with too, but no one has any good leads.”

That put me a bit more at ease. Darius had been telling the truth then. “Okay, so maybe you can explain something to me. I’m going to assume that anyone who isn’t from Hope doesn’t know who I am, because why would they? Some of the people who grew up here definitely know who I am, but I don’t think you grew up here, so how did you find out it was me that people were talking about?”

“You’re a pretty distinctive person,” Mary said.

“I doubt that people were that specific about what I looked like. How old are you?” I asked.

“I’m 21. About to graduate this semester.”

“So you’ve been going to GCU for 3 and a half years then?”

“That’s right,” she replied.

“I think you knew who I was before this. If nothing else, you would’ve heard about me getting arrested in the library. People were all over that, and I have a feeling that you’re familiar with most of the rumors that fly around Hope. Am I right?” I asked.

She took a long drink of her coffee. “Maybe.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I guess acquiring a reputation has its downsides.”

“I’ve heard rumors about you and I knew of you, but I don’t know you and 90 percent of the rumors that people tell are blatant lies. Trust me when I say this isn’t some grand plot against you. If you want me to be totally honest, I don’t really care about you at all. I care about what you saw and I care about writing about it.”

Oddly, that did make me feel better. I didn’t have to figure out what she wanted for me, she was just telling me. I relaxed a bit.

“So, when people talk about me finding the body, are they only talking about me? Because there was someone else there with me, but I’m sure you know that.”

“I did, but to answer your question, yes people are only talking about you.”

“Why?”

Mary shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone leaked that you were there and like you said, you have a bit of reputation. People know you and if I’m being honest, you’re kind of rumor bait. I’m guessing the leaker was a cop. Is there anyone in the police department who might have a grudge against you?”

“Half the department probably.”

“Alright, well that answers where it all started then.”

I took another bite of my food, barely tasting it. “If I tell you what happened, can you do something for me?” I asked.

“Depends on what it is.”

“I want you to find out what cops ran their mouth about me. I don’t like it when people talk behind my back. Can you do that?”

She knit her fingers together and set them on her lap. “I can try. I don’t know if I’ll get anywhere.”

“It’s fine. Just try,” I replied.

“Done. So tell me about what happened,” she said, opening up her notebook and producing a pen.

I recounted it, but I left out the parts about Madame Grace. When I finished, Mary started asking me follow up questions, some of which didn’t seem to relate to the story she was writing at all. They were innocuous though, so I answered them anyway. After about an hour, Mary snapped her notebook shut and put it back into her backpack.

“We’re done then?” I asked.

“Yeah. I have your number and if I have any more questions, I’ll text you. I’ll keep you updated on anything I find about the source of the rumor too,” she said. “Anything else before I go?”

“Use a fake name for me.”

“I was already going to. I don’t think it’ll matter that much, but I’m not going to plaster your name everywhere. On that note though, do you want me to use specific pronouns? You’ve got that whole thing going on there and I don’t know what to call you.”

I smiled. For a lot of people, hearing that would’ve been annoying, but I was just happy she hadn’t tried to sort me into one of her boxes. “I’m in a masculine mood. Use he,” I said.

“Got it. Thank you for talking to me Serenity, I appreciate your time,” she said.

“Thanks for the food.”

“Don’t thank me, it wasn’t good enough for that,” she said. She gave me a small wave, then walked towards the exit without looking back. I followed her with my eyes as she did. I wondered where this was all leading. My guess was nowhere, but if anyone could write a story in a school paper that people would actually give a shit about, it was Mary.

_

The rest of my day was only slightly less boring than my precalc had been. All my professors did was read out the syllabus and answer questions from people who couldn’t be bothered to read down the page to find the answer themselves. Instead of listening to the worthless questions and my professors' bored answers, I read up on a few of the more interesting articles Mary had written.

As I read her articles, I realized that she had a major bone to pick with the university. I had no idea if it stemmed from a dislike of the place itself or something it did to her, but all of her most interesting pieces were about GCU and the awful things it did. They grew steadily more scathing as time went on before peaking with her piece about the bursar’s office. I didn’t know how she was getting away with it. I’d seen GCU deal with problem people in the past. In every case, whether it was city council members wanting to regulate the university more or campus workers trying to unionize, the university came out on top. Hopefully, she wasn’t ever going to stick around Hope long enough before the university tipped the scales back into its favor.

After I got out of my last class of the day, I went out to the quad, sat under a tree, and started to smoke next to the “no smoking” sign planted in the ground right next to it. It was beyond petty, but I was in a petty mood after reading about all the dumb shit GCU had done. A group of gorgeous sorority girls, more attractive at their worst than I would be at my best, leered at me from the steps of one of the advisement buildings. A few other students eyed me as they walked across the quad to other places on campus. I noted their irritation, relished in it, then started to watch the most interesting thing going on the quad, a group of guys playing shirts versus skins frisbee with Arif playing on the skins team.

Arif wasn’t all that athletic. He was in shape, but he missed catches and he had a hard time throwing the frisbee with any accuracy. He had spirit through and everyone on the field, including the other team, seemed happy to play with him. He fit in perfectly with them. It made me feel jealous. I had no interest in playing frisbee or any sports with other people, but I would’ve liked to have it as an option instead of something I was barred from. I was too girly to play sports with men but too manly to play sports with women. It was hard to not be a bit bitter about it.

I took another drag and wondered how long Arif would stick around Annabelle’s little club. He having a reputation in Hope like Annabelle and Elise and not being as visible as Willow and I were. He could fit in with both Hope’s locals and students seamlessly. If Darius wanted, he probably could too. His style didn’t exactly scream straight, but I knew that people could get past that. He had money, despite what he said, he was attractive, and he had more than enough confidence. There was no need for him to band together with us. It was hard to believe that anyone who didn’t have to would ally themselves with me.

That sickening green jealousy mixed with the dark feeling in my chest and made my entire mood darken. Talking to Mary today had been a nice reprieve, but watching Arif play reminded me of how alone I felt. It made me wish I was with Annabelle and Darius or even Willow again, if only so I could focus on them instead of my emotions.

Arif missed another catch, and stumbled into the guy in front of them, sending them both tumbling to the ground. With that, the game came to a natural end. People jogged over to check on the two of them and laughed as they helped Arif and the guy he knocked over back up. Both teams walked over the side of the quad, near a giant tree where all their shirts and water was. They settled down on the grass and talked among one another. One or two of them glanced around the field before their eyes settled on me.

I waved.

They looked away quickly, then nudged their friends and gestured vaguely in my direction. More heads turned to me. A few people snickered. I tried to not let it bother me. It would’ve been easier to pretend that they weren’t talking about me, but I didn’t like lying to myself.

Derek, a tall blond haired guy who I’d gone to high school with, nudged Arif and pointed right at me. I couldn’t make out what he said, but it couldn’t be anything good. I’d never had too much of a problem with him. As far as I knew, his worst crime against me was recording a fight I’d gotten into and helping to spread rumors about me, neither of which I took too great of offense at. Siding with me in any capacity was social suicide. It was why I didn’t take offense when Arif didn’t make any move to argue in my favor. He barely knew me after all.

Some of the guys from the group started to break away, and a few minutes later, every one of them was gone except for Arif. He sat under the tree and finished a plastic water bottle he’d been given, before he got up, took a quick look around, and headed towards me. “Hey,” he said, sitting down across from me. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“You too,” I said.

He glanced behind him. “Did you know some of the people I was playing with? Because it seemed like they knew you.”

“Some of them,” I said.

Arif nodded, then went quiet. He chewed over his words for a bit, before he settled on something to say.“They were saying some pretty crazy stuff about you and what you used to do in high school.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what’d they say? You gotta tell me now. Talking shit behind peoples’ backs is a southern tradition.”

“Some of it seemed a bit played up I think.”

“Like what?” I pushed.

Arif pulled at the grass. “They said you slashed a guy’s tires because he rejected you. Did you do that?”

I laughed. “If I did do it, I wouldn’t have done it because someone rejected me. However, I would’ve done it if someone told me they’d liked to run me over with their car though. Hypothetically of course.”

Arif looked like he was waiting for a punchline or for me to laugh again. I didn’t do either. It was better to correct the record on what actually happened and why I made certain decisions rather than lie about it. At least that way, he wouldn’t be tempted to believe any dumb ass rumor.

“What about the time you said you started a fight with a girl just because she was Catholic?” Arif asked. “Did that happen?”

“She offered to convert me and cure me of my sin. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“So you started a fight?”

I made a so-so gesture. “I don’t think that’s what I’d call it. Starting a fight makes it sound like I punched or something. All I did was shove her and tell her to fuck off.

“They said you broke her nose.”

I shrugged. “That wasn’t my fault. She had plenty of time to stop her face from hitting the wall and she didn’t. I honestly think she let it happen so she could play the sympathy card.”

“Okay, that’s-- I don’t know what to say,” Arif said. “That’s a bit much?” he settled on.

“They gave you a list of some of my greatest hits and made them sound way worse than they actually were. I might not be the nicest person ever, but I never participated or organized a campaign to bully someone and anyone they were friends with. I never bothered people after they told me to go away and I never tossed around slurs. I like to think that makes me somewhat better,” I said.

“Probably,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced.

“Not so sure about me anymore?” I asked.

“No, it’s not that. I don’t think you’re a bad person or anything. It sounds like people were pretty shitty to you.”

“To put it lightly.”

“Yeah, to put it lightly,” Arif agreed. “You might’ve done some stuff I wouldn’t have done, but that doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“Well now you know my crimes, why don’t you tell me some of yours?” I said. I stubbed out my cigarette and put it into my pocket. I considered leaving it on the field, but I wasn’t that rude.

“I stayed away from trouble,” he replied.

“You’re telling me you’ve never done anything bad in your life? Come on, don’t hold out on me,” I said. “My sins have been laid bare for you. You gotta give me something in return. Tell me a secret,” I said.

“Your life is way more exciting than mine. I don’t have any secrets like that. If anything, I tried to get people to stop making bad choices rather than making them myself.”

“You ever shoplift?”

“No.”

“Steal your parents' alcohol?”

“No. They don’t drink.”

“Sneaked out of your house?”

“I told you, I’m really boring. I followed the rules. No stealing, no fights, none of that.”

“Have you ever even had a detention?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing?”

Arif ducked his head. “Really I don’t have anything. The most illegal and ‘bad’ thing I’ve ever done was drinking and smoking with you guys at Annabelle’s house.”

I should have let it go there. Accepted that Arif was a rule follower and leave it at that. I couldn’t though. He wasn’t totally opposed to breaking some rules though and a part of me didn’t want to let that go. A nicer, less selfish side of me also wanted to provide him with something that the other people he was with couldn’t. The most danger they’d ever get themselves was drinking too much. They were boring and if I was nothing if not exciting. I wanted to show him something that would get his blood going, something that would make him feel _alive_.

“You want to do something then?” I asked.

Arif blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“You want to do something?”

“Like what? I don’t want to steal something or anything like that. Or hurt anyone.”

“What about trespassing?” I asked.

Arif wavered. I honed in on it. “Come on. You won’t get caught. I promise this place is really cool.”

“What is it?”

“Hope has one of Georgia’s oldest insane asylums. It’s been shut down for a long time now. Security watches it, but there are only ever a few guys there and I know a way we can sneak in without getting seen.”

“Do you just have a thing for creepy places?” he asked.

“What gave it away?”

Arif tapped his fingers against his leg. “I’m not saying no, but doesn’t this seem like a bit of a bad idea? Just the two of us going to an abandoned mental hospital?”

“It doesn’t have to be the two of us. I’m sure Darius would tag along. Willow would probably be into it too.”

“Why don’t you bring everyone then? Make it a bonding experience?” he said sarcastically.

“Sure. That works.”

“I wasn’t being serious,” Arif said, his eyes widening. “Six of us is way too many.’

“So what number you want to go with? Six people isn't that much. I promise I could get us all in there.”

He rubbed his face. “Can I think about it?”

“Go for it. Just let me know what you decide,” I said. “I’m going to ask the others anyway and see if they’re interested because even if you don’t go, I probably will. It’s been a while since I’ve done something fun.”

“Weren’t you just at a party?”

“Yeah, but that’s a very different kind of fun,” I said. “Sneaking into places is an adrenaline rush that's way more exciting than drinking."

“You know it’s Monday right? Don’t you have class tomorrow?”

“And?”

Arif laughed and shook his head. Seeing his smile relaxed me. He wasn’t saying no. “I don’t know why I thought saying that would change your mind.”

“Because you’re a goody two-shoes.”

“You’re kind of weird, you know that?” he said.

“I’ve been told.”

He laughed again and got to his feet. “Alright, just making sure. I’ll let you know what I decide to do before it gets dark out. Thanks for the offer. Even if I don’t go, it does sound kind of fun.”

“Oh it will be,” I promised.


	5. Stones Unturned - 1.5

The closer we got to the asylum, the twitchier Arif got. He’d been fine when Darius had picked him and Willow up the dorms, but I thought he was starting to realize that we were actually going to sneak into the asylum. At least everyone else seemed calm. Willow sat with their hands folded on their lap, looking out the window, while Darius attempted to sing to some Korean pop song he had blasting on his radio, even though he knew zero Korean. He told me that Annabelle had recommended it to him. I hated to admit it, but it was starting to grow on me too.

“We’re taking pictures of everything. I want to shove it in Annabelle’s face. I can’t believe I’m doing this before her,” Darius shouted, his voice barely audible over the sound of the music.

I grabbed the knob and turned it down so I could hear my thoughts. “She’s too busy banging Elise,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. She’s whipped.”

“Wait really?” Arif asked. “Is that why she didn’t come?”

“You didn’t put it together yourself?” I asked. “Annabelle said she was busy and Elise said she was going over to a friend's house. It’s not hard to put two and two together.”

“They could be doing other things. Annabelle isn't Elise’s only friend.”

“Trust me, Annabelle is sleeping with Elise as we speak. You should’ve seen how defensive she got when I asked her if that’s what she was going to do,” Darius said.

“Why do ya’ll care?” Willow asked.

The question got me off guard. “I don’t really. I just think it’s kind of funny,” I replied.

“Funny how?”

When I started to think more about it, I realized that honestly, it wasn’t that funny. It was kind of sad really. All the humor came from how bent of shape Annabelle got when someone teased her about it. Acknowledging that made me sound like a bitch though, so I quietly avoided answering the question.

“I like drama. Sue me,” Darius replied.

“What drama? I’m missing pieces here,” Arif said.

“Yes Serenity, please explain the nuances of their relationship to us, I’m dying to know,” Darius said. He was trying to be sarcastic, but I was pretty sure he really did want to know what Annabelle and Elise had going on. He’d been around Annabelle since we had our party and there wasn’t’ a doubt in my mind that he’d try to ask her about it. There was no way she answered him when he did. He should’ve been able to put it all together himself, but I guessed this was him verifying his suspicions. 

_He really is every bit the gossip he claims to be_ , I thought.

“There isn’t much to say. Elise likes to have sex and she doesn’t like to be tied down. Annabelle would like nothing more than to have Elise all to herself,” I explained.

“That sounds kind of toxic,” Arif said.

“Oh, it is. Annabelle tried to get Elise to date her once, but Elise wasn’t really on board and only lasted a week before she ‘cheated.’ The whole thing's a bit of a mess.”

“Poor Annabelle. So dumb and in love,” Darius said. “Truly a modern Romeo and Juliet.”

“That makes no sense,” Willow said.

“They’re tragic lovers.”

I snorted. “It’s more stupid than tragic.”

“So tell me, have you slept with her? Because Elise made it sound like you did,” Darius asked, nudging me with his elbow.

I didn’t want to answer. Going over how it happened was too awkward. The whole situation had involved a lot of alcohol and bad choices. I was pretty sure Elise only slept with me because I was trans and she was curious. It was the only logical explanation I could find. I wasn’t attractive in the slightest and my personality wasn't winning me any awards. There was no reason someone as pretty as Elise should’ve been into me at all. 

“No comment,” I said.

“Oh, you totally have! Have you fucked Annabelle too? Do the three of you-“

“Darius please stop,” Arif said, sounding pained. “I don’t want to listen to this.”

“You’re not interested in our club members' past? We’re just bonding, right? That’s what Serenity said this was for after all.

“I don’t want to bond over who’s sleeping with who, that’s so weird.”

“You’re just a prude.”

“Maybe I’m just nice?”

“Is that the Asylum?” Willow asked.

I glanced out the window and saw the asylum further up the road, shrouded in deep shadow. The outside of it was partially illuminated by a few streetlights on the inside of of a tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire that surrounded the asylum. A small squat building had been hastily constructed in front of the asylum, near the fence’s gate. A truck and a car were parked on the outside of it. It might’ve been the shittiest security office I’d ever seen.

“Yeah, that’s it,” I said.

“What is the other building?” Willow asked.

“It’s the security office, but we don’t have to worry about it, we’re not going over that way.”

“Where are we parking?” Darius asked.

“Just pull over somewhere, it doesn’t matter.”

“You want me to park on the side of the road?”

“It’d be better than parking in the middle of it yeah.”

“We should pick somewhere more secluded,” Willow said. “If anyone sees a car sitting on the side of the road, they’re going to have questions. Go somewhere else.”

“They’re right,” Arif said. “If we’re doing this can we please be safe about it?”

“You’re making this seem a lot more dangerous than it actually is. No one really cares,” I said. “But we can park somewhere else if you really want. Darius, a bit more up the road there is a little service road that doesn’t get used anymore. You can park in there.”

He grimaced. “My car isn’t made for off-roading.”

“It’ll survive.”

Darius sighed dramatically. “This better be worth it,” he said.

Darius slowed his car down to a crawl and craned his head to look out the passenger side window, trying to find the start of the service road. I thought it looked way more suspicious than pulling over and parking would’ve, but there was no need to worry. It was a moonless, cloudy night and we hadn’t passed any cars on our way up anyway.

“Where is this turn?” Darius asked. “I can’t see shit.”

I peered out the window and spotted the little bit of clear brushed that marked the service road around ten feet away. “There,” I said, pointing out the window.

“There is very specific. Thank you for that,” Darius deadpanned.

“Turn on your high beams, you’ll see it.”

Darius flicked them on, illuminating the start of the road. He groaned like someone was tearing out one of his teeth, but, pulled onto the service road all the same. He drove up onto it until the mouth of it disappeared into the darkness behind us. “This good enough?” he asked.

“It’s overkill honestly, but yeah. You don’t have to go further.”

Darius turned off the car and we all got out. I was glad everyone had listened to me when I told them to wear dark clothes for this. Even Darius had toned down his typical style and settled for a more practical pair of black jeans and a black hoodie and shirt.

“Okay, so the security circles the building every now and then, but that’s not really a problem, we’re probably not even going to see them and we’ll be in before they see us. Some of the doors are locked, but all the locks are old, so I can pick them pretty easily. There are no cameras anywhere except for around the front gate and security office, and we're not going near there like I said, so we don’t have to worry about that,” I said.

“You know how to pick locks?” Arif asked. 

“Yeah, I know how to pick these one, they’re really shitty,” I said. “You could do if you had enough time. It’s really not that hard, I promise. 

“What do we do if the security does see us?” Willow asked.

“Run. They’ll chase you, but like I said, once you’re outside of the fence you’re in the clear. They’ll call the cops too, but the police will take forever to get here since they don’t really care about people sneaking in here. In the absolute worst-case scenario, you get caught, arrested, and slapped with a fine for trespassing. It’ll ruin your night, but you’re not going to jail for anything.”

“It sounds like you have experience with that whole process,” Darius said.

“Just a little.”

“How are we going to get in if we’re not going through the front?” Darius asked. 

“There is a hole in the fence behind some bushes. When we get through it, follow me to a side door. We’re gonna go in that way. Nothing too complicated, I said. “Everyone ready?”

“Yes,” Willow said.

“This is starting to seem like a really bad idea,” Arif said. 

“You can wait in the car if you want, but I’m going inside,” Darius replied. He nudged Arif with his shoulder. “Come on, it’ll be fine. You’re worrying over nothing.”

Arif sighed. “I just really don’t want to get caught.”

“You won’t. I’ll get us in and out. Trust me, I’ve been here before,” I said.

Arif took a deep breath. “Fine, but I don’t want to stay long.”

“We won’t. Once you’ve seen the first few rooms, you’ve seen them all. Not need to be there for hours,” I replied. “So are ya’ll ready or what?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Arif said.

“Lead the way,” Darius said.

“Alright, no lights and try and be quiet. If you need to say something, whisper,” I ordered, then started to walk down the service road and back to the street the asylum was on. We walked up to it, keeping as far away from the asylum as we could until we got to the start of the fence. I spotted the massive row of bushes that hid the gap in the fence. A gap that I hoped was still there. It should’ve been. The fence around the asylum was poorly maintained, so it was no surprise that there wasn’t a landscaper trimming back the undergrowth encroaching on the fence.

We darted across the street and to the bushes. The asylum loomed above us like a haunted mansion. It was almost like it’d been built to instill fear. The architecture was all sharp angles and intimidating facades without a single flat surface or a circle anywhere in sight. It was only three stories tall, but cast in darkness, it sent a tiny shiver of fear and excitement through me. 

I loved it. 

I led our group into the bush, pushing aside limbs and squatting low to avoid the more stubborn ones. When I saw the fence, I was glad to see the single long cut some brave soul had made in it years ago was still there. There was no sign of security on the other side of the fence either. We had the benefit of being hidden in darkness too. The closest streetlights were a good bit away, and they didn’t reach the area we going to go through. I glanced behind me and saw the silhouettes of Darius, Arif, and Willow crouched inside of the bush and ready to go. I smiled. 

“I’m going to go through, now. Keep your eyes on me and follow me when you get through,” I ordered then pushed the fence forward and squeezed through the gap in it. As soon as I was clear, I got to my feet and jogged across the small space that separated the fence from the asylum and to a side door to the asylum that was invisible in the darkness of the night. If I hadn’t already known it was there, I would’ve missed it. I pulled a small locking picking kit out of my pocket and glanced behind me. Darius and Willow were through the fence, but Arif was having trouble getting through. Darius and Willow were trying to push back the fence as much as possible to give them space. It made the fence ripple and shake. I was glad there was no security around to see that, or it would’ve been a dead give away. Willow and Darius gave the fence another hard shove, and Arif burst through the gap safe and sound. 

That familiar thrill was starting to dance through me. My blood was flowing and I could feel a knot of tension in my chest. It was good, it was more than good. It’d been way too long since I’d done this. “Give me a little light so I can work,” I said when the three of them walked over. “I’ll have this open in a second.”

Willow gave me some light with her phone, and I slid my picks into the lock and to work opening it up. As far as I could tell, the lock on it hadn’t changed at all from the last time I picked it to get in. I was rusty at picking locks though. It wasn’t something I made a habit of doing. One second turned into a minute than 5. My hands were starting to sweat. 

“I see lights!” Arif hissed. “Serenity hurry the fuck up.”

The knot of tension in my chest started to veer less towards excitement and more towards anxiety, but I forced myself to keep my hands steady and to not look for the lights. I was almost there. The tumblers were lining up. I was almost there. Just a bit longer. 

“Security is getting closer. Two of them. They’re moving pretty quick,” Darius whispered. 

I made a final adjustment and felt the lock give. A wild grin spread out on my face. I was buzzing with energy now. “Viola,” I said, pushing the door opened. 

Arif pushed past me and rushed inside along with Willow, with Darius on their heels. I hesitated and looked to the left. Around 30 feet away and advancing, were two pairs of flashlights bouncing along in the night. They weren’t nearly close enough for their lights to reach us, but if I’d taken another few seconds longer, we would’ve gotten caught. I smiled, then slipped inside the asylum and shut the door and locked it as quietly as I could. The hall I’d entered into was pitch black. The only noises I could hear were Darius, Willow, and Arif breathing. There was a creeping sense of something dark and nasty in the air just on the edge of my awareness. I put it up to almost getting caught.

“Can someone _please_ turn on a fucking light,” Arif said. 

The hall was it up by a bright beam of light a moment later. It came from Willow’s phone, they shined it around the hall and I found that it was the same as I remembered it. Tacky light blue wallpaper was starting to peel and the floors with filthy.

“We almost got caught out there,” Arif said. “You almost fucked us Serenity.”

“I didn’t though,” I replied. 

Darius patted Arif on the back. “I told you it’d be fine. We’re safe.”

Arif stepped away from him and glared at the walls. “We’re risking being arrested for this?” he asked. 

“It’s a big building. There are way cooler parts of it,” I said.

“This feels like standing next to the lynching tree,” Willow said. They started to walk down the hall, tracing their hand over the wall while they did as if they were in a maze. “It’s oppressive.”

“Yeah, it’s an abandoned asylum. I’d be disappointed if it didn’t have a creepy vibe,” Darius said. “Where is the lobotomy room. That’s gotta be the creepiest place in here.”

“The what?” I asked.

“The place where they drill into your skill then cut some connections in your brain to ‘fix’ you. Every antiquated mental hospital probably has one. They were huge on that shit back in the day.”

“I don’t think there is a single room they devoted solely to lobotomies. There might be a surgery room, but I have no idea where it would be,” I said. 

“Can we not go to that?” Arif asked. He looked like he was about to get sick. “I don’t want to go where people had their brains destroyed. That’s fucked up. This place is already creepy enough.”

“You’re already here, you may as well see some of it,” Darius said as he started to follow after Willow. 

Willow led us down the hall, and then shined their light into the first room we came across. It looked like some sort of waiting room. Trash and old bulky medical equipment was scattered all over the floor and covered with a thin layer of dust. Spiders’ webs were spread across every single corner of the room and a good bit of the wreckage. 

“Why don’t they clean up?” Willow asked. 

“The government hasn’t decided what they want to do with it. They don’t know if they want to renovate it and make it a proper hospital or if they want to make it a museum. So it’s just been sitting here for years,” I explained.

Darius strolled into the room and bent over to inspect an old wheelchair. “It’s less exciting than I’d thought it’d be.”

“What were you expecting?” I asked

“Ghosts, maybe a crazy nurse who sneaked in and started living here,” Darius said.

“Is the whole place like this?” Arif asked. “Just garbage and empty rooms?”

“Sort of yeah. We’re here for the atmosphere, not the garbage though. “Darius come on. We’re not spending all night in one room.”

“Lead me to greener pasture,” he said as he left.

We left the room behind and slowly walked down the hall, trying to keep our footsteps quiet. I was pretty sure the security didn’t actually patrol the interior, but there was no need to be loud anyway. We passed a couple more rooms, but none of them were very interesting. Most looked like the waiting room we looked at, even if some were a bit smaller. It was sad in a way. Less than a hundred years ago, people had been here getting “treatments” in those rooms that did more harm than good. There were probably people just like me who’d been stuck here until they figured out how to suppress who they really were. 

The hall opened up into the center of the asylum. Two large staircases littered with trash dominated the left and right walls of the room. They led up to the second and third floors. All the second and third floors consisted of was a large catwalk that ran along the walls. It left a massive square whole in the center of the room that led up to the ceiling. If it was daytime, the gap would’ve allowed light to fill the center of the entire building from the massive windows installed on the ceiling. As I looked up at the windows, I wondered, what would it have been liked to be trapped here. To stand and look up at the only glimpse of outside you might get that day. 

Dread filled my veins and I almost choked on my next breath. Something felt wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Nothing had changed, but it seemed like the air had gotten colder and the darkness thicker. Instead of breathing in air, it felt like I was breathing in smoke.

“What hall are we going to?” Darius asked. He didn’t seem affected at all by the atmosphere. 

_It’s all in your head _, I reminded myself.__

__

__There were four halls in the lobby. The one we’d come out of, the one across from us, one to the north, and one to the south. I only knew that the south one led to the front door of the asylum. I had no idea where the other two went. We weren’t going to find out tonight either. “None of them, we’re going up the stairs,” I said._ _

__

__“It’s getting worse,” Willow said. “I can feel it.”_ _

__

__“What are you talking about?” I asked._ _

__

__“The feeling I got when we walked in. It feels like something really, really bad is going to happen,” Arif said. “I’m pretty sure we are not supposed to be here.”_ _

__

__“Well we did break in, so you’re right about that,” Darius said._ _

__

__“You want to go back?” I asked._ _

__

__“Yes,” Arif said._ _

__

__“Darius?”_ _

__

__“I’d like to see the rooms. I’m curious,” he said. “Just a bit more.”_ _

__

__“Willow and I are going to bail then,” Arif said._ _

__

__“We are?” Willow asked, sounding confused._ _

__

__“You feel it too. We should go,” Arif said._ _

__

__“Let me think about something,” Willow replied._ _

__

__Then, they turned off the flashlight on their phone._ _

__

__The room became so dark I could barely see my own hands in front of my face. My heart started to pound as my body prepared itself to do something. I reveled in it. This was the feeling I was searching for all day. That adrenaline and awareness of myself. The mix of fear and danger. I couldn’t leave now. Not when I was getting exactly what I came for. No matter how creepy the asylum felt, there was nothing magical about it. It was just an abandoned building._ _

__

__“Made your choice? Because I want to go up the stairs,” I said, trying to break the tension._ _

__

__Light flooded the room once again. I turned and found Arif, his eyes wide with his phone flashlight on. He’d look like he’d seen a ghost._ _

__

__“I feel something,” Willow said. “I want to find it.”_ _

__

__“What are you talking about?” Arif asked. “Feel what? There is nothing to fucking feel. It’s just creepy. Can we please go?”_ _

__

__“I want to find it first,” Willow said. They walked towards the right side staircase, turning on their light as they went._ _

__

__“Guess we’re going up,” Darius said as he followed._ _

__

__“You’re all fucking crazy. I don’t want to do this anymore,” Arif said. There was a tremble in his voice. His fear was almost palpable. It made me feel guilty._ _

__

__“We’ll go find whatever it is Willow is talking about then leave. Five minutes. I promise,” I said. “It’s really just a building. We’re safe. Think about it logically.”_ _

__

__Arif shined his light around the room and let out a heavy sigh. “Five minutes. I’m keeping you to that.”_ _

__

__“See, this is the sort of thing I’m here for. Now we’re ghost hunting,” Darius called out as he walked up the stairs._ _

__

__“Stop being so loud,” Arif barked as we headed towards the stairs._ _

__

__Willow led us up to the third floor before they stopped in the middle of the catwalk. Darius wondered over to the railing of the catwalk, then leaned over the side and gazed into the darkness of the lobby below. “How many people do you think threw themselves over the railing from up here?” he asked._ _

__

__“Darius, what the fuck” Arif said._ _

__

__“I’m being serious.”_ _

__

__“Get away from there for fucks safe. You’re going to hurt yourself,” Arif ordered._ _

__

__Darius pushed himself back from the balcony and walked back to the center of the floor. “I don’t know about you, but if I built this place, I would’ve built a real floor instead of just having the walkways,” he said. “Makes it harder for people to kill themselves.”_ _

__

__“Stop. Now. You’re pushing it. It’s not funny,” Arif said._ _

__

__“I wasn’t making a joke.”_ _

__“It wasn’t really funny. Lay off a bit,” I said._ _

__

__“Fine, fine,” Darius said, waving a hand through the air._ _

__

__Willow started moving again then stopped in front of a door around ten feet from us, just before the walkway turned. “Here,” they said, tapping the door._ _

__

__“What’s there?” I asked._ _

__

__“It feels the worst here. There is something there.”_ _

__

__“I’m sorry, if that’s where it feels the worst, why the hell would we go in there?” Arif asked. “Am I the only one that sees the problem here?”_ _

__

__Willow tried to open the door, but it was locked. They glanced at me. “Open it,” they said._ _

__

__“Serenity, don’t fucking do it,” Arif ordered._ _

__

__“One more room and then we’ll go,” I said, starting forward._ _

__

__“You keep fucking pushing it,” Arif shouted. His voice echoed down the confines of the hall. “You keep wanting more and more. You said five minutes and-”_ _

__

__“It hasn’t been five minutes. That’s still on,” I said as I reached the door. I got out my lockpicks and went to work._ _

__

__“You’re really doing it, aren’t you?” Arif asked. He sounded pissed, but I wasn’t stopping now. I could feel what Willow was talking about. There was something there and being close to it caused wave after wave of adrenaline to crash over me. It was the most terrified and exhilarated I’d ever been in my life._ _

__

__“You don’t have to go in. We’re just going to peak and then we’ll leave. I’ll buy you lunch for sticking through it,” Darius said._ _

__

__“That’s not a good bribe,” Arif replied._ _

__

__I got the door open without too much effort. The lock on the door had been weak. Had former patients picked their way out? If I got it that easily, they couldn’t have too hard of a time. I stepped away from the door and swallowed. All my muscles were tense. I was ready. “Door’s open. Go for it,” I said._ _

__

__Willow reached past me, opened the door, and shined their light inside. The room was only slightly bigger than a prison cell. A bare metal gurney was tipped over on the floor. The floor was soaked with dried blood. Bits of it had even splattered on one of the walls. It was almost as bad as the floor of a slaughterhouse. Above one of the blood splatters on the wall was a piece of paper was pinned to the wall by a scalpel that had been driven deep into the wall._ _

__

__“Holy fucking shit,” Arif gasped. “That’s fucking- that’s blood.”_ _

__

__“It’s very old,” Willow said._ _

__

__“Why the hell is there a puddle of blood in here?” Arif asked. “What _happened? _____

____ _ _

____“I’m getting the paper,” Darius said. He shoved past me and Willow and entered the room, then tore the piece of paper off the wall. He started to turn, then went as stiff as if he’d been struck by lightning. I couldn’t hear him breathe._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Darius,” I called._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He didn’t react._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Darius, what the fuck?” I said, louder this time._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He still didn’t move._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I strode forward and grabbed his shoulder. As I did, a crash of the raw terror hit me. One second, I was on solid ground, and the next I was weightless and plummeting into a dark bottomless abyss that never ended. All of my excitement was converted into raw fear. A scream built in my throat that I couldn’t get out._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Serenity,” I heard faintly. “Serenity!”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Something slapped against my face, hard enough to sting. My eyes jolted open. I hadn’t even realized I’d shut them. Darius was staring at me, one of his hands on my cheek, his own eyes wide with fear. “It’s the paper,” he said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Leave it,” Arif said. “God please leave it. It's not fucking worth it. I don’t what’s going on, but it’s not worth it. It’s not,” he said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____My thoughts dragged, but my brain eventually rebooted itself and I realized what everyone was talking about. The paper. It was the source of the terror, the thing that made me feel like I was dying. How did Darius touch it alone and not fall apart?_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“What does it say?” Willow asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I can’t read it, it’s too dark,” Darius said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Just let it go!” Arif shouted, a pleading edge to his voice._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Willow stepped forward and put their hand on my back. Some of the bone-deep terror left. It became easier to breathe, but the fear was still at the forefront of my mind. “It’s like a necklace,” they said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Magic. The paper was magic. What the fuck was going on?_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“The necklaces? What are you talking about?” Arif asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We’re leaving,” Willow said, taking control of the situation. They seemed to be on the most solid footing out of all of us. “Darius put the note in your pocket. Don’t touch it.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Are you sure we should-”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Put it in your pocket,” Willow repeated, more demanding this time. I was happy to listen. It was a direction to move in._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Do it,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius slowly folded it up and put it away. More of the terror vanished. Instead of being choked, there was just a hand curled around my throat, ready to reapply the pressure at a moment's notice._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Let’s go,” Willow said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We’re seriously taking it? You’re- you’re all fucking crazy. You’re out of your minds,” Arif said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We’re taking it for now,” Willow said. They dropped their hand from my shoulder and headed out of the room._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius reached down and laced his fingers with mine, then squeezed. “I’m not carrying whatever this is alone. Don’t let go of me,” he said. There was a joking lilt to his voice, but by how tense he was and how tightly he was holding me, I knew he was being serious._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I squeezed his hand back.“I won’t,” I promised._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____The trip back down through the asylum barely felt real. All the spaces the darkness that our flashlights didn’t touch seemed to write and reach out towards us like it was trying to capture us and drown us in its embrace. Arif kept cursing to himself as we walked along. I couldn’t blame him._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____We reached the door we entered from and Willow reached out to open the door before Arif stopped them. “Lights off. We don’t know where security is. We cannot get caught now. I am not getting arrested, do you understand? I’m not. We peak out first before we do anything._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Okay,” Willow said. They and Darius shut off their lights, then Willowed unlocked the door and opened it a slit._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____A flood of light from outside lit up the crack in the door. Security must’ve been close. They might’ve seen us open the door. We might’ve been fucked. Arif moved to move to slam the door shut, but Willow closed it more gently before he could._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Their lights were pointed at the door,” Willow said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Did they see us?” Arif whispered._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I don’t know,” Willow replied._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius squeezed my hand tighter and I returned the favor. It was a reminder that everything that was happening was real. There was no waking up and having the problem disappear. I wished we weren’t standing in the dark so I could have something to look at and anchor myself with instead of just Darius’s hand._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Suddenly, someone yanked at the door. I only barely stopped myself from screaming. Panic erased every desire in me except for the one to escape. Willow and Arif scrambled back, and I followed, pulling Darius with me._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I told you there is no one there. It’s locked,” a man drawled. He sounded old and far away from the door._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I swore I saw it open,” replied a younger, distinctly non-accented voice replied. His voice came from right outside the door._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“There’s nothing there.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I’m checking on it,” the young guy said insistently. I heard a key slide into the door._ _ _ _

____ _ _

_____Fuck_._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____We ducked into the first room we ran across. A second later, I heard the door open and a bright light shine down the hallway. Darius and I pressed ourselves up against the wall and I put my hand over my mouth, trying to erase the sounds of my breathing._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I told you,” the old man shouted. He sounded annoyed._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I thought-“_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“No one saw anything on the cameras, the door was locked, and we didn’t’ see anyone on our last round. Please don’t make me do another fucking walk through. I’m too old for this shit.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Fine,” the young guy said. The light stopped beaming down the hall and the door slammed shut._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“If you’re so tired you’re that you’re seeing things, it’s time for more coffee and a break,” the old man shouted._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____The other man replied, but his voice was muffled by the door. He was leaving. We were safe. I took my hand off of my mouth. We waited in silence for a long minute before I dared to break it. “We’re good,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Are you sure?” Willow asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Yeah. Pretty sure,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Willow turned their light back on. The sight of it was like a breath of fresh air. I was about to make a joke when I met Arif’s eyes. He was glaring at me like he could erase my existence with just a look._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We should go then. Before they come back,” Willow said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Yeah,” Arif growled._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____When we slipped out of the room, then peeked out the side door again. This time, there were no lights. We ran from the door to the fence and slipped back through it. Once we were on the outside again, it was easier to breathe. The letter in Darius’s pocket kept a good amount of fear locked away in my chest but feeling the rest of it go away made me want to shout in joy. My excitement and exhilaration returned. We’d fucking did it. We found something dangerous, almost gotten caught, and then escaped. I felt like I was in a movie. I’d never felt so alive._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“That was awful,” Arif said, once we crossed the main street again and started up the service road. He kept a bit ahead of all of us at all times and had both of his hands shoved into his pocket. “The reason I never did anything like this because it’s a fucking terrible idea. That went terribly.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I thought it went well,” Darius said. He tried to inject some of his typical sarcasm back into his voice. It didn’t sound right though. It was too forced and unnatural._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“How do you think anything about that went well?” Arif asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We got in and out without getting caught and we found something cool in the process. I’d consider that a major win,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“A win? You mean the paper that looked like it was literally killing both of you? That paper?”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Yeah, that very one,” Darius said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“That paper is so good that you still can’t even let go of one another,” Arif spat._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I realized that Darius and I were still holding hands, but I didn’t have any desire to let go. Touching him was nice and I didn’t want to leave him alone to deal with the emotional turmoil of carrying the paper._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“What’s on it?” Willow asked. They sounded excited. It was a distinct break from their usual neutral tone of voice._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I don’t want to touch it right now,” Darius said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Wow, it’s almost like you should’ve left it there, to begin with. Or we should just burn it now.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We’re not burning it,” Willow said. “I want it. Do not destroy it. It’s magic.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Fucking magic? What are you talking about?” Arif asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We’ll look at it in the car. It feels like it’s how the necklaces were. Touching it now is not a good idea,” I replied._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“That’s the second time you’ve said that. Would someone please fill me in on what the necklaces are? And why we’re talking about magic? What’s going on here?”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Do you remember the necklaces Serenity and I wore when you first met us?” Willow asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“The wooden ones?” he asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Yes. They are magic. Madame Grace did something to them. I think they absorb and carry emotion. The paper seems to do the same, so I think it’s magic too.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Arif laughed, but there no humor in it. “Magic. You expect me to believe that magic is real? And that that paper is magic?”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Yes.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Arif swung around to look at me and Darius, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you’re buying this.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“There’s something to it,” I said. “I’ve had- there are more reasons than just tonight to think it’s real.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I’m sold personally,” Darius added._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“He looked back and forth between us, then at Willow. “Why does it seem like you three know something I don’t?” he asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I wasn’t going to tell him about the other body. Not now. It wasn’t the time. “You know everything we do. We’re telling you now,” I lied._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“If you don’t believe us, you can touch the paper too,” Willow offered._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I don’t want anything to do with the paper!” Arif said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Well, if you don’t think it’s magic, then you must think it’s normal. You shouldn’t have any problems touching it,” Willow said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I don’t- I’m done. I’m not doing this shit. I don’t want to hear any more. Don’t talk to me,” he said, then stormed ahead on the service road, leaving us behind._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“He’s pissed off,” I observed._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“He’ll be fine,” Darius said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____When we got the car, Arif was leaning against it, gazing further up the service road. He didn’t look back at us as he heard our approach. Darius unlocked his car and Willow and Arif got in, but Darius and I lingered. We were still touching and it was clear neither of us wanted to let go._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Just for a few seconds,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You’re not carrying the demon paper.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You can handle it.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius rolled his eyes then tore his hand away from mine, then walked around the car. I got in the passenger seat. Darius was in the car a second later. He reached across the console and grabbed my hand again._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Read the paper,” Willow said, reaching a hand forward and laying their hand flat on top of the console. “You can touch me if you need to.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius started his car, then turned on one of the overhead lights. “Alright. Let’s do it,” he said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“What part of ‘I don’t want to hear this’ did you not get?” Arif asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Don’t listen if you don’t want to,” Darius said. He swallowed, then took the paper out of his pocket and held it under the light. Another sot of terror pushed its way through us and I quickly lowered both of our hands so that they were resting on top of Willow’s, sharing the fear. Even with that, my other hand shook._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____The letter was written in an elegant cursive. Whoever had written it looked like they’d taken time to carefully inking every single letter. It wasn’t the sort of cursive anyone practiced anymore and to me, it was almost unreadable._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius didn’t seem to have trouble with it though and started to read. “Dear Maribelle and Waylon. I’m sure you never thought you’d heard from me again. I presume you thought you’d gotten rid of me and discarded me like garbage. Unfortunately, for you, nothing could be further from the case. Your best efforts at my confinement both during my life and death were all utter failures, and now I’m hunting for you. If you’d like, you may consider this a formal declaration of war. I am going to destroy Hope like it should’ve been all those years ago and dance on the ashes, but before I do that, I’m going to kill you. Both of you. Ya’ll will die as you should, weak, helpless, and pathetic. Make preparations if you’d like. It doesn’t matter. I plan to put you both in hell by the end of this year. Signed by an Isiah Marsh.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____All the adrenaline and good feelings I had coursing through me were snuffed out by the end of the letter, leaving me hollow. A new, cold icy feeling gripped my heart. That letter wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t a game._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I wasn’t having fun anymore._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“What the actual fuck,” Arif choked. “Darius, I swear to god if you made that all up to fuck with me, I’m going to kill you.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius dropped the note and let it flutter to the floor. He screwed his eyes shut. “Yes Arif, I’m sitting here writing a long, intricate death threat just to fuck with you. You’ve got me.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“He’s not lying,” I said. “That’s what it says. I think.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I’m going to take it to Madame Grace’s,” Willow said. They were practically vibrating in their chair. “She will know more. She can tell us.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You two are okay with this? You’re honestly happy to bring that along?” Arif asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We’re not getting rid of it,” Willow said. “We’re not. It’s mine. I want it. We’re keeping it.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Willow you can’t-”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You don’t have to have anything to do with it, but I’m keeping it.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Arif threw his head back. I saw his lips moving in what might’ve been a silent prayer of curse. When he was done, he kicked the back of Darius’s seat hard. “Fine. Get me home. If you all want to dumb asses, I’m not going to stop you. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____The drive back to the dorms was completed in dead silence. No one touched the paper on the floor. Darius didn’t even turn on the radio. It was tense in the worst way. I kept flinching at shadows, half expecting something to lunge at us from the dark. Even when we got to busier roads and returned to streets with ample lightning, the feeling stayed._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____As soon as the dorms were in sight, Arif unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed the door handle. Darius hadn’t stopped completely when he opened the door and started to get out. He slammed the door shut behind him, then made a beeline to the front door. He didn’t look back._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Give me the letter,” Willow ordered._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“One person can’t carry it. There is something really, really wrong with it,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I won’t touch it then. Wrap it up in something,” they replied._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You’re sure about this?” Darius asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Yes.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius reached over my lap and popped open his glovebox then withdrew a plain file folder. He took the papers out of it, gave them to me, then scooped up the letter on the floor of the car without touching it. He didn’t let go of my hand the whole time. “Here,” he said, handing the folder to Willow. “Don’t touch it with your hands or skin or anything. Seems to make it much worse.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Okay.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I turned around and looked at Willow. “Be safe.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I will.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Promise me.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____They met my eyes for a brief second before they glanced away. “I promise.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Thank you.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I’ll tell you what Madame Grace says when she sees it,” Willow said as they got out of the car. They walked around it, then stopped by my window. I rolled it down. “Promise you two will be safe as well,” they said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We promise,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Same,” Darius agreed._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____They nodded. “Good.” They turned and walked into the dorm building, leaving Darius and me alone._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You have cigarettes?” Darius asked. “Because I could use one.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I pulled my pack out of my pocket and handed it over along with my lighter. Darius let go of my hand, and pulled two out, then stuck both in his mouth, lit them, and handed one to me. I plopped it into my mouth and took a deep inhale, closing my eyes as the smoke filled my lungs. Willow was right. I really did need to stop, but it was hard when they felt this good._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I could use a drink,” Darius said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Annabelle is probably still with Elise,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius dropped his head on top of the steering wheel. “Fuck.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Don’t you have a dorm?” I asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Yeah, I share it with Arif though.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Not an option then.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius raised his head and rolled his shoulders. “We’re going to Annabelle’s. She’ll get over herself.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I wasn’t going to object._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Halfway through the drive to Annabelle’s house, Darius finished his cigarette and took my hand again. I laced my fingers with his again. Touching someone else was good. Even with the letter gone, the fear and adrenaline from being in the asylum still lingered._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Annabelle’s house was dark and quiet when we pulled into the driveway and parked behind Annabelle’s car. It was right next to Elise’s shitbox, a beat up rusting silver sedan that looked like it was built in the early nineties. More than anything else I’d seen in the past few days, that car was proof magic was real. There was no way something like it should still be running. Neither I nor Darius said anything about it being there. Neither of us was surprised._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____The front door wasn’t locked and when I pushed it open and revealed the near pitch black interior of Annabelle’s house, a tiny bit of fear came over me. It was like we were back at the asylum all over again. I could just make out a bit of light shining down from the third floor. I wanted to get there and into the light as fast as possible. “Let’s hurry,” I said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Why? What’s the deal with her sisters?” Darius asked as we walked p the stairs._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I don’t really know. They’re just weird and-”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Two shadows stepped out of the shadows blocking off the top of the stairs. I couldn’t see their eyes in the dark, but I knew they were looking at us._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Who are you?” one asked. Her voice was raspy and quiet like she wasn’t really used to talking. I had no idea which one she was, but she had to be either Bailey or Claire. I decided to assume she was Bailey._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We’re Annabelle’s friends. I’m Serenity,” I said. “You might’ve heard of me?”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Right. You’re the tranny,” the other said. Her voice was similar to Bailey’s, but it sounded like she was purposefully pitching it up to be obnoxious. If she screamed, I could imagine it shattering glass. I narrowed my eyes. Annabelle wouldn’t have talked about me like that._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Wow, you were not kidding when you said they were bitchy,” Darius muttered._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Who’s your boyfriend?” Bailey asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Sorry, I’m not anyone’s boyfriend. I’m just a friend,” Darius replied._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Bullshit,” Claire snapped._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Sorry?” Darius asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You’re just a replacement for that slut who comes now that Annabelle has come to her senses,” she taunted._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I was too tired for this. I hoped this was the one time I would meet them and after this, I could go back to only hearing about them by proxy. “Annabelle!” I shouted. “We’re here!”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You could be anyone claiming to know her,” Claire said. “Some gutter trash that dragged itself in here. You don’t belong here.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“If she knew you, she’d be answering too. Get out before we call the police,” Bailey said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Annabelle!” Darius bellowed. “The welcoming party has a problem with us!”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Shut the fuck up and get out of my house you-”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Bailey, Claire, get the fuck out of the way,” Annabelle shouted, her voice echoing down from the third floor._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You can’t have random people staying here! They’ve been here for the past few days. Mom and dad said you couldn’t do that!” Claire screeched in response._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Turn on your light and walk up, they’ll get out of the way!” Annabelle shouted._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I turned my phone flashlight on and shined it up the stairs. For a brief second, I caught sight of two near-identical people. They were both deathly pale with hair so blond it was nearly white. Both of them were lanky and thin with the same delicate features. Both of them scattered out of the light like cockroaches before I could see any more._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I’m calling mom!” Bailey shouted. “She’s going to kill you!”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Darius, get the fuck up here. Now!” Annabelle yelled._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____We didn’t waste any time listening._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Bailey and Claire leered at us from the shadows as we got to the third floor, but they made no move to stop us. When we got to the top of the stairs, we found Annabelle, leaning against a banister, looking outraged. Her hair was messy and her clothes looked like she’d just throw them on._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You’re lucky I hate them more than I find you annoying. What the fuck are you two doing here? Weren’t you doing something tonight?” she asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“We finished doing it,” I replied._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Great. So now you dragged your ass back to me and ruining my night. I love it. Thanks for that you fucking assholes.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You’re not doing anything,” Darius said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I am.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Who are you doing?” he asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____I elbowed him hard in the arm. I couldn’t fucking believe he was pushing this. “Sorry. We had kind of a bad night. That’s why he’s being an asshole.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I don’t think I’m being an asshole,” Darius said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“God just- I don’t have time for this,” Annabelle said. She slumped against the wall. “Go do whatever. I’ll deal with ya’ll tomorrow.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Cool, we’re going to go get drunk then,” Darius said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Great. So long as you don’t fucking bother me, I don’t care,” she said before she walked back to her room and slammed the door shut behind her._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“That went well too. We’re two for two tonight,” Darius said, walking to the living room. He grabbed a bottle of wine from the table, then looked around for glasses. When he didn’t see any, he drank straight from the bottle._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I don’t feel lucky,” I said, flopping down on one of the couches. Darius sat next to me and handed me the bottle. I looked at it for a few lone seconded before I tossed it back too._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You do have a knack for finding weird shit.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Do you really think this is all coincidence?” I asked. “Two bodies and then this? Why me? What’s going on?”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius took the bottle back and took a long drink. “I think it’s chance. If you didn’t run around in cemeteries, break into asylums, and talk to witches, your life would be a lot more normal and you wouldn’t find all this shit everywhere.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Do you actually believe that? If magic is real, I could be cursed,” I said, handing the bottle back._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“If you sat in your room instead of running around, would you have found anything?” he asked._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“No.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Then there’s your answer. If you want to stop finding shit, stop going to weird places,” he said._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Darius gave me the bottle. I took another drink, grimacing against the strong flavor. It was making my head swim though and I could feel that familiar warmth flowing through me. “It’s boring to just sit around.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Then you’re going to keep finding weird things. This isn’t rocket science.” It wasn’t what I was looking for Darius to say, but I didn’t know what I expected to begin with. I slumped back into the couch. Darius took another drink of wine, then put it on the table before he kicked his feet up into my lap and laid back. “It’ll be fine. Stop stressing over it.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Wow, I’m cured.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You’re welcome.”_ _ _ _


	6. Stones Unturned - 1.6

I was hungover. Again. Or maybe I was just sleep deprived. They both led to more or less the same result. I felt like shit, I had a headache, and I really didn’t want to get up and move. I groaned as I sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and checked the time. It was only 9. I didn’t have class today until 12:00. At least I wouldn’t have to go anywhere feeling this much like death. In hindsight, following a night like last night up with alcohol was a bad idea, but denying Darius was hard, and regretting it now was pointless.

Darius was asleep on the couch next to me, his legs on my lap. His glasses were skewed on his face and his clothes were wrinkled, but even with that, he had an air of casual elegance to him, as if he planned out how he would look asleep. It was unfair. No one should look that good.

Fantasies of kissing and sleeping with him flickered through my head. I’d never kissed anyone before, so I had no idea what I’d even do, but his lips looked soft and inviting. Maybe I could get him to do it. Convince him to look past the weird, fucked up mess that my body was. Maybe he’d even like it. Objectively, I knew some people did. Chasers existed, but even beyond them, there were people out there who would’ve found me attractive. It was a big world. If magic could exist in it, than someone who would think I was pretty was out there too.

Of course, I probably wouldn’t ever find who that was. Something existing didn’t mean it was easy to find.

I forced myself to look away from Darius. I didn’t usually care about social etiquette, but it had to be bad practice to stare at your sleeping friend and think about fucking them. Everything I was thinking was better off unsaid anyway. Better to not entertain trains of thought that would only end in bitterness and disappointment.

“Wake up!” Annabelle barked, appearing in the doorway and making me jump. She looked like she’d been awake for a while. Her makeup was on and I couldn’t see a hint of exhaustion on her face. She was well dressed in a pair of overall shorts and a white t-shirt. An expensive looking purse hung off her shoulder, and she had on an ornate white sun hat that looked like something Willow might wear. Her sharp eyes flicked over me and Darius before she took in the empty bottle of wine lying on the floor. She wrinkled her nose. “I’m leaving soon and you two aren’t staying here without me.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I have class at 10:30.”

“You’re seriously making us come with you?”

“No, I don’t care what ya’ll do, you just can’t do it at my house. Now get up,” she ordered.

I looked at Darius. He was still asleep. “I don’t think that’s working.”

Anabelle stalked up to Darius and started shaking his shoulder. He groaned and opened his eyes. They were alert. He’d been awake the whole time. “Guess you’re being serious then?” he asked.

You both have five minutes to get ready,” Annabelle said before she turned around and left the room, her footsteps echoing down the hall.

Darius took his legs off my lap and rubbed his eyes. He looked even more tired than I did. Had he gotten to sleep later? When I passed out, Darius was still awake. I hoped for his sake he didn’t stay up all night.

“Five minutes is not enough time,” Darius groaned. “How the hell am I going to get ready?”

“Just get changed,” I said, getting up and digging a fresh change of clothes out of my bag. I ended up pulling out a plain pink shirt and a pair of denim shorts. Good enough for me. I was tired and hungover. Doing anything that was the bare minimum was not happening today.

“Is that all you do to get ready? Seriously? Aren’t you going to brush your hair?” Darius asked. He almost sounded offended.

I glanced at him. He was busy going through his own bag, pulling out shirts and pants, inspecting them, then folding them back up and putting them away. I couldn’t figure out what basis he was using to pick out his clothes. I could hardly tell the difference between most of them. To me, he was just wasting time. I got my brush out from my bag and started dragging it through my hair, then looked back over at Darius. He was still digging for clothes.

“You really don’t have time for that,” I said.

“Are you going to get changed or what?” he asked, still not looking up from me.

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. “In here?” I blurted out.

Darius stopped moving for a brief second like he was chewing over the question before he started back up again. “If you want to.”

Was that an invitation? It almost seemed like one. I bit my lip. “Are you going to watch?” I asked.

“Do you want me to?” he replied.

He had the familiar teasing lilt to his voice, but it didn’t seem like he was making a joke. I hooked my fingers around my shorts, then paused. What the fuck was I doing? I couldn’t really do this. I wasn’t Elise. I didn’t have the confidence or the beauty for it. A knot of anxiety formed in my chest, and then I was hit with the full force of how shitty I felt. There was fantasy and there was reality. The point of keeping them separate was so I didn’t humiliate myself like this.

“I’m going to take that as no?”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything,” I said, before I ducked out of the room, my face on fire. That might’ve been the most painfully awkward moment of my life. I needed to figure out how to shut my mouth sometimes.

I locked myself into the bathroom and changed quickly, avoiding looking at myself in the mirror. I really wasn’t interested in seeing how I looked. I felt bad enough already. No need to pile it on. I took my pills, then walked back to the living room to get Darius. He was just finishing buttoning up his shirt. He raised his eyebrows at me when I entered. “You good?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I replied, a bit snippier than usual.

“Cool.”

“I gave you an extra two minutes, but your time is now up, let’s go,” Annabelle shouted from down the hall.

“I’m going to need another 5,” Darius shouted back.

“What for? You look fine,” I said.

Darius took out his phone and looked at himself through it. He titled his head back and forth before he rolled his eyes and put it back into his pocket. “I beg to differ, but it’ll survive I guess. Let’s go.”

We met Annabelle at the top of the stairs and we all started to walk down into the darkness of the lower floors. “Tell me what happened last night. You looked like shit when you got back,” Annabelle said.

“We told you what we were doing. We even invited you,” Darius said.

Annabelle looked over her shoulder, but I couldn’t make out her face in the dark. “So nothing happened? You came home looking like you saw a ghost because everything went well?”

“I think it went perfectly well. It was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done.”

“Serenity, tell me what happened,” Annabelle ordered.

“Are you going to say please?” I asked.

“Fuck no. Now tell me.”

I wasn’t in the mood to argue with Annabelle. It was easier to just give her what she wanted. “There really isn’t that much to say. Arif got pissed because he was scared and we almost got caught at the end,” I recounted, avoiding mentioning the letter. If she found out, it was going to make the morning harder.

“Why was he scared?”

“The asylum was creepy and we might have found a detailed death threat in a room that was covered in dry blood. Really interesting stuff let me tell you,” Darius said.

Well, there went that plan.

Annabelle stopped walking down the stairs. “Run that by me again.”

“We found a death threat to some people called Maribelle and Waylon. A guy named Isiah was threatening to kill them and destroy Hope. He seemed pretty serious about it.” Darius paused, as if for dramatic effect. “It seemed like it might be magic too. I think.”

“You fucking _think?_ ” Annabelle asked.

It was pointless to hide the truth from her now. I figured I might as well tell her. “Yeah. Touching it was awful, it was like touching the jewelry we found. Maybe even worse. It was bad,” I said, then winced at the sound of my own voice. It was too deep and gravelly, even though I was trying to even it out. Why did I even try when I always sounded like shit?

“You two can’t be fucking serious. I don’t believe that ya’ll are this stupid,” Annabelle fumed. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about this when you came in last night? Doesn’t this seem, I don’t know, pretty fucking important?”

“Nope,” Darius said.

“So let me get this straight, all of you found a letter with a detailed threat on it in an asylum no one but security goes into, one that might be magic, and you didn’t think that was important? Am I getting that straight?”

“Let me correct myself, it’s important for someone, just not us,” Darius said.

Annabelle took a deep breath. It was the sort of response she gave when she was trying to reign herself in from going off on someone. “How is that not fucking important? What is wrong with you two?”

Being lectured by Annabelle first thing in the morning when I was hungover was extremely low on my list of things to do. Her voice was too edged and I didn’t have the patience to talk her down from freaking out. “Willow has the letter now. They’re giving it to Madame Grace. We can just be done with it.”

“I don’t want to be done with it!”

I didn’t think I did last night either, but I could remember the way the letter felt. The suffocating feeling touching it caused. Arif was right. We should’ve just left it there. “If you want it, go talk to Willow or Madame Grace. I’m not helping.”

“I don’t need your help,” Annabelle said, then stormed down the stairs, leaving us behind.

“I guess we’re in a snippy mood today,” Darius said. “I’ll admit that I’m kind of curious about what’s going on too though. You don’t have to help, but if she does go to Madame Grace’s to ask, do you want to come?”

The answer should’ve been no, but Darius was right when he said it was interesting. I couldn’t help being at least a bit curious. Finding out what was going on with the latter didn’t mean I had to get involved though, but as I was, I couldn't face the letter again. “Ask me when I don’t feel like shit,” I said.

“Will do.”

We finished walking down the stairs and emerged outside. Dark, low hanging clouds promised rain and the air was thick with humidity. It was like we walking through clouds of mist. There was no breeze either. The air was still and thick and God I fucking hated Georgia’s weather.

“You parked behind me, you’re driving,” Annabelle said. She walked up to Darius's car and pulled open the passenger door, then slid inside.

“There was no please in there,” Darius said.

“You said you’d pamper me. This is pampering me. Drive,” she ordered, then slammed the door shut.

Darius walked around his car and leaned on the driver's side door. He took a deep, dramatic breath and looked up towards the sky, then back down at me. “Lovely day we’re having, isn’t it?”

“Oh definitely,” I said dryly, then climbed into the back seat of the car. “I don’t even have class until twelve. I don’t know why we can’t be at your house without you,” I complained.

Darius got into the car. “I had the same question,” he said.

“Because it’s my house,” Annabelle replied.

“More like you’re anal and has to control everything,” I countered.

“I’m sorry, you’re right. I should let the two of you run around and mess with my sisters again so you can get the cops called on you, and kick you out. That’d be perfect.”

“That sounds like the worst case scenario. I’m not really worried about that,” Darius said.

“Well, I’m glad one of his worried about the important things. Someone has to do it,” Annabelle shot back.

“Your concept of important things includes fucking Elise, so I’m not sure it’s the best metric,” I said.

Annabelle twisted her body around in her seat so she could see me. Her face was drawn tight and her glare was so harsh you’d have thought I murdered her dog. “You really want to go there Serenity?”

“You’re pissed because we didn’t tell you what we found, but you walked away as soon as we got back, so don’t blame us and don’t take your anger out on us either. You’re being a bitch.”

“For your information, I was talking to Elise last night, not fucking her, so shut up. I told you I’m over her. I fucked up and slept with her when I was drunk before yeah, but we're past that now. It's over. I also don’t care if I’m being a bitch. The situation warrants it.”

“Every situation warrants it for you.”

“Yeah? Is that what you think?”

We glared at one another for a long time, but Annabelle outlasted me. I crossed my arms and looked out the window. If she wanted to be petty, she could be.

Darius pulled out of the driveway, then cleared his throat. “So am I dropping you off at class or what?”

“No. We’re getting breakfast,” Annabelle said.

“Where? The dining hall?”

“Fuck no. That dining hall is awful. We’re going to a restaurant downtown.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Somewhere I want to go.”

So helpful. “You’re paying?”

Her eyes flicked up to meet mine in the mirror. “If you say you’re sorry I might.”

I was going to take that as a yes. If we ate and it turned out she expected me to pay, I’d walk out and leave her with the bill.

“I for one, am deeply sorry for my offenses,” Darius said. By the way, is there going to be parking there?”

“Park in the dorms and we’ll walk. You have a pass.”

Traffic increased the closer we got to campus, even though there weren’t that many cars. The streets around it were never meant for so many people to be on them at once, but it was too late to renovate or expand. Closing even one of them and trying to would cause such a massive amount of traffic and inconvenience that no one ever bothered. So nothing ever got done. It was a very Hope way to approach the issue.

After 15 minutes, Darius parked and we started down the street. Annabelle led Darius and me to a small breakfast place called Mae’s. It was one of the few “good” restaurants Hope had and was packed full of people. Most of them were students, but there was one table where a group of old people who I had the misfortune of knowing sat. All of them went to Hope First Baptist Church and when one noticed me coming in, she nudged her friends and pointed my way.

“Matthew!” Mary Anne shouted my name much louder than she needed to. I was amazed she could even talk so loudly when she had to be at least in her late 90s. “You’re mother said you stopped coming home again!”

“Ignore them,” I said following Annabelle to a table. I got into the booth first and made Darius sit beside me so I was partially out of Mary Anne and her friends' sightline. I picked up one of the menus and started to thumb through it, if only for something to do. I already knew what I wanted.

“I know you hear me, Matthew!” Mary Anne shouted.

“What’s their deal?” Darius asked.

“They’re friends of my mom,” I said.

“Mary Anne you’re wasting your time on that boy. If he wants to wallow in sin let him,” an old man spat. I was pretty sure his name was Greg, but I couldn’t remember for sure.

Other people in the restaurants were starting to notice the commotion. A few of them glanced at our table, then to the old folks. I forced my face to stay neutral. I wasn’t going to leave because a bunch of geriatrics living on borrowed time were mean to me.

“I’m telling you he-”

“Ma’am, please don’t shout in the restaurants,” a server said, stepping up to their table. She was young and looked about as tired as I felt. “It bothers our other patrons.”

“I was just trying to talk to him!” Mary Anne complained.

“If that guest wants to talk to you, they’ll have to come over to you. Please, don’t shout,” she said.

Mary Anne grumbled something too quiet for me to hear. She stared at our table for a long second, before sighing and turning back to her group. The waitress walked towards us.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. She brushed some of her dark hair out of her face and forced a smile. “What can I get ya’ll?”

We all ordered and the waitress gave us another apology before she hurried back to the kitchen. Annabelle folded her hands on the table and met my eyes. “We have a meeting with the student activities director that you have to come to today. It’s at 11:00. Professor Lee hasn’t been replying to my emails, so you get to avoid dealing with him today. You’re welcome.”

I put my head in my hands and dragged my fingers through my hair. “Didn’t you just bitch at me for not telling you things?”

“I did tell you. I texted you about it yesterday. You ignored it. This is your reminder.”

“You did not text me.”

She crossed her arms. “Go look then.”

I pulled out my phone and went to our messages and found the exact one she was talking about. I glared at my phone, then put it away. “I’m only going if you pay for my food.”

“Deal.”

“So Annabelle, if you weren’t screwing Elise last night, what were you doing with her?” Darius asked.

Annabelle’s eyes narrow, but we were saved from another one of her rants by our waitress coming back to give us our coffee. When she left, Annabelle looked like she calmed down a margin.

“I told you, we talked. We also studied together. She has some of the same classes as me.”

“You mean she’s tutoring you. Elise doesn’t need to study,” I said.

“Why? Is she some sort of genius?” Darius asked.

I said probably just as Annabelle said no. Annabelle glared and I ceded her the floor.

“No, she’s not a genius. She’s just got a good memory. That’s literally it. If she was a genius she wouldn’t make so many stupid choices.”

“What, does she have a photographic memory or something?” Darius asked.

“Something like that,” I said. “She never studied and passed everything and she was the valedictorian at our shitty little high school, not that that’s a huge accomplishment. No matter how you look at it, she’s pretty smart.

Darius took a sip of his water. “So is she filling our your professor kink then?”

“When you say things, do you think about them at all? Because that might have been the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” Annabelle said.

“I think about them. I always have a purpose in mind,” Darius replied.

“What’s your purpose now? To piss me off more? Is that your goal here?” Annabelle said.

“That’s part of it. I also like to know things,” Darius said.

“You want to know things, you have to tell me something in return. I don’t do charity.”

“What do you want to know?” Darius asked.

Annabelle tapped her fingers on the table. “I don’t know. You’re not very interesting.”

Darius looked a bit upset at that. “I beg to differ. I’m one of the more interesting people you’ll ever meet.”

“You just like attention.”

“Said the pot to the kettle.”

I took a swig of my coffee. Annabelle and Darius were staring one another down in some bizarre stare off like they were dogs trying to assert dominance. Or…no. Dogs weren’t right. They were peacocks, flashing their feathers and trying to one-up each other in a pointless competition that only they cared about. I hoped I didn’t look like that back in the car.

The waitress came back and put our food in front of us. I’d thought that’d break some of the tension, but they just moved on to eating their food in the stiffest, stuffiest way possible. They would’ve been better suited for dinner with the queen than the cheap place we were at.

“Serenity, when do you think Willow already went to Madame Grace’s?” Annabelle asked, finally looking away from Darius. He preened, clearly thinking he’d won whatever dumb competition he was having with Annabelle.

“I don’t know, did you text them?” I asked.

“I did, but they’re not answering me.”

“So what do you want me to do about it?” I asked. “I’m not Willow’s keeper. It’s pretty early, so I doubt they have.”

“Can you just tell us what you’re going to do if you get it back?” Darius asked. “Because I really don’t get what your intentions are.”

“My intentions are making sure Madame Grace doesn’t have it.”

“Okay, so what are you going to do when you get it? Burn it?” he asked.

“Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”

“I don’t think we should mess with it,” Darius said. “Let Madame Grace have it. Why do we even care? She can do whatever she wants with it. It doesn’t affect us.”

“You really think that’s how this is going to go? She’s doing _something_ to Hope. Fucking with it. I don’t trust her.”

“So you’re solution is to become a detective?” I asked. “Is that the direction you’re going with this?”

“I’ve thought about it,” Annabelle said. I gave her a Look, then glanced at Darius. He had his eyebrows raised. “What? You think this has all been coincidence?” she asked.

“Finding the letter and the bodies? Yeah. I do.”

“Serenity, you’re not that stupid.”

I took another bite of my food and swallowed without even tasting it. “Even if it isn’t a coincidence, it doesn’t involve you. I’ve been there for all the weird bits. You were only there for one.”

“Madame Grace said my fate was intertwined with yours.”

“What happened to think she was full of shit?” I asked.

“I’m covering my bases. Even if she is full of shit, I want to see the letter. You’re not getting rid of me.”

 _Like a vine around a tree_ , I thought. She couldn’t care less about the letter. It was still about control. About having everything in her grasp and not being left behind. There was no talking her out of this. She had her eyes on her goal now and in classic Annabelle fashion, she was going to pursue it until she got what she wanted.

“Well, if we’re stopping by Madame Grace’s again, I’d like to have my personal issues aired to the whole room too. It seems like group tradition,” Darius said.

“We’ll check on her after our meeting today,” Annabelle said, ignoring Darius.”

“Works for me,” Darius said.

“I never agreed to go,” I objected.

“You’re going,” Annabelle said like that was going to be the end of the conversation.

“You two can go for it, I’m not touching the letter again. I told you. I don’t want anything to do with this anymore. I’m not going to make this a bigger mess than it already is. If you want to piece together a mystery that might not even exist, feel free.”

“Whatever mystery is here is real and you know it,” Annabelle said.

I didn’t reply and went back to eating. Even if finding every had been a coincidence, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more going on either. That was all the more reason to avoid the situation entirely. Whatever was going on, magic or not, was bigger than me. People were getting death threats over it. People had _died_. Even if we found out what was happening, fixing it was all but guaranteed to be impossible. That wouldn’t change just because there was a revenge plot and a self-proclaimed witch involved. If anything, it’d just make it more true.

“I don’t care if it’s real.”

“So you’re going to run away from the problem?”

“We’re done with this conversation.”

“Are we?”

“We are.”

She looked at Darius, but he was already looking out the window, acting like he hadn’t heard every word we said. I made a note to thank him.

“Fine. Do whatever you want. Darius, are you coming with me?”

“Sure, I’m curious,” he said.

I bit my tongue. I wished he wasn’t going down this road, but I wasn’t going to stop him. There was enough to worry about already.

“Good.”

_

The student activities director was an older woman who had to be approaching retirement. Her dark hair was cut short but was starting to gray. She was dressed in black a men’s suit with a bright blue tie. A pair of reading glasses were perched on the tip of her nose and her sharp eyes were surrounded with crow's feet. I couldn’t see a trace of makeup on her face. Her nails were trimmed filed short and to my surprise, I saw a wedding band on her finger.

I wasn’t a fan of stereotyping, but I was pretty sure she was a lesbian.

Her office was cramped but neat. Two diplomas hung proudly on the wall, as well as a landscape painting of a farm at sunset. A small wooden bookshelf wedged in the corner held row after row of weathered book. Two antique-looking chairs sat in front of a cheap metal desk with a heavy looking computer on top of it. The desk was completely out of place with the rest of the room. If she had the ability, I was positive she would’ve thrown it into the garbage and gotten something just as ornate and old as her bookshelf and chairs. She didn’t offer a smile as we entered, choosing instead to keep her face carefully neutral. It was the kind of expression you’d seen on a mortician presenting a family their embalmed loved one.

“Hello, you can call me Miss Davenport. It’s nice to meet you two,” she said in a slow methodical way, enunciating every single word clearly. She extended her hand across the table.

“I’m Annabelle Ardent and this is my friend Serenity Holt,” Annabelle said, giving her hand a quick shake. I did the same.

“Please, take a seat,” she said, gesturing at the two open chairs. Annabelle and I sat and Miss Davenport pulled a folder out of a drawer and set it on the desk. “I think this meeting is going to be more unpleasant than either of us would like, but we’ll get there in a moment. Firstly, do you plan on requesting funding for your club?”

“No, we shouldn’t need it,” Annabelle said, her voice clipped and short.

“Good,” Miss Davenport said. She opened up the folder and scribbled a note. “I just have a few more questions now and some things to tell you. Annabelle, you’re listed as enrolled in the University, but Serenity I couldn’t find your name. However, there is an individual I found who has the same last name. Their first name begins with an M. Should I assume this individual is you?”

She didn’t say my dead name, which was a good start. I was already liking her. “Yeah, that’s me,” I said.

“Good. In the future, you will be required to sign your legal name to any forms you submit to the university. I apologize for any discomfort this might cause you.”

“It’s fine.”

“Time for the unpleasant part then. As I’m sure you know, the last club with a purpose like yours did not survive for longer than a year. The official reason was due to lack of members attending meetings. I have a strong suspicion this was due to external pressure on said members.”

“External pressure from where?” Annabelle asked.

“A mix of sources.”

“Like?” I pushed.

“Other students as well as the university. I suspect you’ll face many of the same challenges as the last club faced.”

“What challenges exactly?” I asked. She was beating around the bush. I was starting to get annoyed.

“Perhaps an example will be useful. I see that you filed an application to reserve a room at the university once a week for your club’s meetings. That application was denied,” Davenport said. She took a paper out of her folder and pushed it across the table for us to see.

Annabelle picked it up and read over it quickly. I’d never seen the form before, but I assumed it was one of the many things she had to do and I got to avoid. At least, that’s how it was supposed to be. Sitting here now made me very aware that wasn’t the case.

“Denied? There are plenty of empty rooms, why did it get denied?” Annabelle asked after she read through the paper a second time. She slammed it down on the table harder than she needed to. “This makes no sense.”

“You saw the official reason for yourself, but allow me to reiterate. Your application was officially rejected because all the rooms in the Arts and Sciences building, the one you applied in, are being used for other purposes at that time.”

I rolled my head back and stared at the ceiling. God, why was I here? Of course this was going to end up more complicated than it needed to be and I was going to have to sit through all of it because there was no way Annabelle was going to let this go.

“I’ll do it somewhere off campus then,” Annabelle said.

“Having a room reserved, even if you don’t use it, is required.”

“That sounds incredibly stupid,” I said.

“If you want to have an official university club, you have to have some relationship with the university. The room is to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to attend club meetings. It’s also good for transparency,” Miss Davenport said. It sounded like she’d delivered that particular line more than she ever wanted to.

“So if we don’t have a room, we don’t have a club?” I asked.

“Correct. You will have to submit a second application and apply to use a room in a different building. It will take some time for your application to get processed. If it gets rejected again, you are welcome to resubmit again. It might take some time to get a room.”

Annabelle pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why do I have to apply to building specifically? Why isn’t there just a list of empty rooms in all the buildings? This is convoluted for no f- no reason.”

“I agree, but the system is resistant to change. The rules as they are right now are not going anywhere. If you want to make your club, you are going to have to submit forms until you get a room.”

“Can I submit multiple at once?”

“No.”

In any other situation, I would’ve laughed at how red Annabelle’s face was getting. The only time I’d ever seen her be close to this mad was during sex ed when we sophomores in high school. She’d gone back and forth with the health teacher over his stupid tape analogy until they were both screaming at one another and spit was flying from their mouths. She only managed to rein it back in when another teacher had poked her head in to inform them that their argument was loud enough for all the surrounding classes to hear. After that she sat in her chair, glowering at the teacher and quietly fuming for the rest of class.

“Fine. I’ll submit another,” Annabelle conceded.

“Excellent. Now for another demonstration of a challenge. Have you met with Professor Lee yet?” Miss Davenport asked.

“No.”

“Well, he has informed me that he has changed his mind in regards to sponsoring your club. He was recently promoted from an adjunct professor to an assistant professor and has told me that he does not think he will have enough time to sponsor you. You’re going to need to find someone else.”

“He got a promotion and he bailed on us?” I asked. “Seriously?”

“No comment,” Davenport said.

“He didn’t tell me that. He hasn’t been responding to any of my emails. How did he tell you that he was saying no?” Annabelle demanded.

Davenport grabbed her mouse and clicked around a few times on her computer. Her eyes flicked over the screen, and then she nodded. “He emailed me.”

Annabelle closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you know where his office is?” she asked.

“That information is publicly available on the university’s website.”

“I’m going to talk to him,” Annabelle declared, her words laced with venom.

Davenport nodded. “If you’d like to. However, you will still need to find a new sponsor for your club. I will give you a bit of leeway in filling that requirement, as you were not informed of the situation. I’ll give you two weeks to find another sponsor. If you fail, your club application will be rejected entirely and you will have to start over. Any questions?” Davenport asked.

Annabelle was seething. Her hands were balled into fists and she was glaring a hole in the wall next to Miss Davenport’s head. Miss Davenport didn’t look any more or less upset than when we started the meeting.

“Is there anything else we need to know? Any more ‘challenges’ for us?” I asked.

“There will certainly be more, but those will be more informal. These are the formal challenges I needed to go over with you two. If you don’t have any questions for me, you are free to leave.”

“What can you do for us?” Annabelle asked. “You’re the head of the department right? Can’t you get us a room and help us find a sponsor? Isn’t that your whole job to begin with?”

“No,” Miss Davenport said, putting our file back away. “My job is to oversee the clubs and recreational activities of the university. Making new ones is out of my hands. I can only approve them.”

“Can’t you change the processes to make this easier?”

“The requirements are not very difficult to meet. It's rare to face the level of adversity that you two are. Take that for what you will,” Davenport said.

“You didn’t answer my question, can you change the processes or not?” Annabelle asked. She leaned forward over the desk, her eyes narrowed.

Davenport met her eyes. They stared at one another for a second before Davenport relaxed back into her chair. “No. I don’t have the power to do that. Changes to procedure have to be voted upon by the university council. I am not a part of that council.”

“Then what power do you have then? Can you do anything?” Annabelle asked.

Miss Davenport folded her hands on her desk. I noticed she had a wedding ring on. “I’ve been doing what I can. Putting pressure in the right places, letting people know I am watching them, but I can only do so much. The Student Affairs department is not particularly prestigious. I am its sole administrator. What does that tell you about the amount of power I have?”

“You have almost none,” I answered.

Miss Davenport glanced at the door, then settled back in her chair. “Precisely. This is my punishment for rocking the boat, for ‘doing something’ as you said, Annabelle," Davenport said. She sounded bitter.

I frowned. “Rocking the boat?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the expression.”

“What did you do?” Annabelle asked.

“I was unpopular among quite a few of my colleagues. They disliked my administrative style enough that I was demoted from a prospective provost to this. I’ve been languishing here since.”

With that bit of context, her decor, clothes, and demeanor all made much more sense. Even if she didn’t wield the power she once did she liked to keep the aesthetic that she did. This was a person who’d played the game and lost just like all the other people who fought against Hope. I looked back down at her ring.

“Who are you married to?” I asked.

“My partner.”

“A female partner?” I asked.

“Yes, I have a wife..”

“When did you propose?”

“Why are you interested?” Davenport asked.

“You’ve basically told us we're screwed and that our club isn’t going to get off the ground. Can’t you at least humor me?”

Davenport sighed. “Fine. I proposed 4 years ago. The day after Obergefell v. Hodges.”

“And when were you demoted to this office?”

“Shortly afterward.”

“You said you were demoted because of your administrative style,” I said.

“That was the explanation I was provided, yes.”

“Oh my god, can’t you just say what you mean? You don’t think that’s all that it was, do you? They demoted you because you’re a lesbian right?” I asked.

Davenport twisted her ring. “I’ve seriously entertained the thought.”

“You’re okay with that? You just let that go? Just like that? You didn’t even bother to fight?” Annabelle asked.

Davenport smoothed out her jacket. “I’m here because I did try and fight. I believe my experience and the experience of the last club like yours should highlight the difficulty you’re going to have here. I’m sure you were already there, but a reminder never hurts.”

Annabelle started to say something, then snapped her mouth shut. She then got that scheming look in her eyes. I started to bounce my leg. The air in the room was starting to feel suffocating. How did Miss Davenport sit in here all day and not lose her mind?

“You’re really not going to do anything to help us, are you?” Annabelle said. “You’re just going to sit behind your desk and watch us fail.”

“That’s a rather uncharitable interpretation.”

“You’re not going to rock the boat for us,” I amended.

“That’s a better way to frame it,” Miss Davenport conceded. “An even better way is to say that I can’t. I’m going to gently suggest that you lower your expectations for how this is going to end.”

“How is this going to end then?” I asked.

Miss Davenport shrugged. “I couldn’t really tell you. I can’t see the future. I am simply informing you the road ahead is rough and unpleasant.

“This sounds like you’re telling us to give up.”

“That’s one possible interpretation.”

“What other conclusion could you possibly draw?” Annabelle snapped.

“That you should continue despite adversity. The road being rough does not mean it’s unnavigable. A good start to navigating it would be doing what I already told you, submitting another room application and finding another sponsor.”

Annabelle stood up. “We’ll be back,” she promised

Miss Davenport gave her a ghost of a smile. “I look forward to it.”

Annabelle stormed out of the office in silent fury, leaving me behind. Miss Davenport eyed the now open door.

“Do you have a question Mx. Holt?” she asked. I was surprised at the title, but happy to hear it. It made me feel bad for how Annabelle snapped at her. It wasn’t her fault she was stuck here.

“If you got fucked over as hard as you did, why do you still work here? What’s the point?”

“I do not believe in running away from my problems Mx. Holt. If I retreat, then the problems will remain and those who put me here will be free of a thorn in their side. At least here, I can continue to be annoying,” she said. She tapped her fingers to her lips. “I’ll admit that the paycheck is rather convincing as well.”

“Right,” I said. I got out of my chair and headed to the door.

“Take care Serenity,” Miss Davenport called behind me.

“You too.”

With every step I took down the hall, more anger unfurled in my chest. I felt like a bloodhound picking up on the aftermath of Annabelle’s rage, but I had nowhere to direct it at. It wasn’t Miss Davenport’s fault and just like she said, there was no one person I could blame any of this on either. It was a hundred tangled threads knotted so tightly that you couldn’t even pull a single one out. If you tried, there was someone there to tell you it was pointless. To inform you that even pulling out half a string was a herculean effort, if not a complete pipe dream.

The part that made me the angriest was that I was starting to believe them.

Outside, the day was somehow even grayer. The air was somehow even worse than it’d been in Davenport’s office. It felt like breathing in hot smoke. Why couldn’t it just rain? Why did it have to be so miserable?

“Serenity?” Darius asked. “You good?”

I startled. Darius was sitting on the step, a book open in his lap. Annabelle was sitting below him and to my surprise, she was leaning against his legs. Jealously like I’d never felt before joined the swirl of heat and misery rioting inside of me. Annabelle had sat me in a room for 30 minutes before my first class to learn about the intricate layers of bullshit that underlaid making a club at GCU, and now she was going to sit down and have Darius make her feel better when I had to go to class. I could’ve killed her. I could’ve killed both of them. Where was my comfort? What was this fucking bullshit?

“I have class,” I said, walking down the stairs. I kept my eyes up. I wasn’t going to show them how pissed I was.

“Wait aren’t you going to tell me what happened? Annabelle is-”

“She’ll fucking tell you. I have class,” I snarled without turning around. I fixed my eyes on the path ahead of me and walked. I had to go to my classes. I had three of them today, almost back to back. I wasn’t going to be done until 4:30 if every one of them went the full 50 minutes. I didn’t have time to sit here and talk.

Annabelle called out my name behind me, but I didn’t stop walking. I’d deal with her later. Maybe. I could go back to my parents' house for a night. Sneak in late like usual and give myself a break from her and everything else, if only for a few hours.

“Serenity!” Annabelle shouted after me

I kept walking.


	7. Stones Unturned - 1.7

I turned off my phone halfway through my intro to philosophy class. It’d been blowing up ever since I left Darius and Annabelle on the stairs of the Student Services office, but I refused to look at any of them. I was too pissed for that. They hadn’t deserved me snapping at them to begin with, but I knew I was going to snap at them again if I answered them now.

So, instead of being mad at them, I thought about how much I hated Hope and GCU and how much I couldn’t wait to get out. I’d done a good job at focusing on that through all my classes, but my philosophy professor was making it hard to continue. He was an old squat Greek man with a wispy beard and looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. His name was Professor Sideris. Despite his apparent age, he didn’t have any trouble shouting about philosophy and pacing around the class. He informed us that he hadn’t yet made a syllabus, but that one would be coming “soon.” He then launched into some long-winded rant about Ancient Greek philosophy with so many tangents that I lost what his main point was.

He was the most entertaining teacher I’d ever had. His energy was infectious. His eyes were bright and he gestured wildly whenever he made a point. I’d never seen someone who looked as happy as he did. What was his secret? Was it all a facade and he was twisted up inside too? It was hard to believe that anyone living in Hope was genuinely happy, but if anyone was close, it had to be professor Sideris.

“Questions about anything I've said? I’m happy to answer anything,” he said, wrapping up one of the tangents he went on.

Elise rose her hand. She sat at the front of the class and had taken careful notes as Professor Sideris went on. I bet she had a good question. She glanced back at me and winked. “You mentioned how the Greek concept of beauty had a lot of emphasis on young men, so did these philosophers date them or something? How did that work?” she asked  
I barely held back a laugh.

“Excellent question. I see you were paying attention when I talked about the Acropolis and its statues. Now, the Greeks actually believed that young men…”

He spent the rest of the class talking about the concepts the Greeks had of beauty, sexuality, and how all that related to old philosophers screwing younger guys. There was more to it than I ever imagined. It was obviously a well-studied topic. I loved it. I could practically feel the discomfort of the class rise around me as professor Sideris plowed on. Every time a student grimaced, Sideris would become more passionate and convinced of the importance of the information he was sharing. I decided he was my favorite professor.

When class ended, everyone darted out, glad to be free of Professor Sideris and all of his talk about the beauty of young greek men. He lingered for a minute, chatting with the few students that stuck behind, then eventually left with them to his office, leaving Elise and me alone. Elise approached my desk and sat on top of it. She crossed her legs, then looked down at me with an exaggerated pout. “You didn’t say hi to me when you came in,” she complained.

“Sorry, my bad,” I said.

“You don’t sound sorry.” She pulled her phone out and tapped the screen. “By the way, Annabelle has been spamming the group chat to try and get to you. Something about Willow and Madame Grace. Do you know what’s going on?”

I sighed. Why did she have to bother me about this? “Yeah, I do. Unfortunately.”

“Care to explain?”

“Honestly? Not really. It’s dumb.”

“You seem kind of worked up for it to not be important. Talking about your problems can make you feel better about them you know. You looked like you were going to kill someone when you walked in. You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

“I’m not mad at Annabelle. I’m mad about something else.”

“What’s that something else then?” Elise pressed.

My anger flared. Why did she have to keep _pushing_? “Why do you even care? Are you going to go run off and tell Annabelle what I said? Is that why you’re asking?”

Elise rolled her eyes. “Why would I? You’re my friend. I’m not going to run my mouth about everything you say to me. Even if I did, why would it matter? You said it doesn’t have to do with her.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Elise slid off my desk. “If you really don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to press. You just looked pissed and I wondered why. I’m sorry if you didn’t want to talk.”

Fuck. She was trying to be nice and I was being an asshole. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be a bitch. I’m just frustrated. Annabelle and “I had a meeting with the student activities director for our club. She told us that the university is making it as hard as they possibly can for us to get our club up and running and she’s not going to help us with any of it. There isn’t anything we can do either. That’s why I’m pissed.”

Elise frowned. “What are they doing? Denying your application or something?”

“Sort of. They didn’t straight up deny it, but we need to have certain things, like a class to host meetings, and they’re not giving us any, even though I know they have some open. They’re hiding behind bureaucracy to shut us down.”

Elise gave an exaggerated wince. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, it’s fucking bullshit.”

“Alright, I get why you’re pissed about that, but what do Willow and Madame Grace have to do with that?”

Shit. Back around to the question I didn’t know I could even answer. I was going to seem crazy if I started talking about magic and witches like they were a real thing that existed. There was no good way to explain it. However, trying to hide the truth from her would be even harder. If I told her I didn’t want to talk about it, she’d know something was wrong and prod Annabelle until she told her. If I lied, Elise would fact check me.

Goddammit, Annabelle. Why did she have to key everyone else in? She was making this more of a problem than it needed to be. “She’s- do you really want to know? Everything involved in that situation is convoluted and really stupid.”

She smiled. “Those are my favorite type of things, of course, I want to hear.”

“It’s long-winded,” I said.

“This was my last class. I’ve got time. Come on, follow me. I found a cool garden we can sit at. It’ll be quiet and we’ll be alone,” she replied. She started to walk towards the door, then looked at me over her shoulder. “Also, can you please answer her so she stops spamming?”

I got up and turned on my phone, then trailed after Elise. “Yeah, I will in a bit.”

Elise led me to the outskirts of GCU’s campus to a small garden that was set near a ramshackle wooden building that looked like a mini barn. The door to it was chained up and it was sagging under its own weight and years of neglect. It was a stark contrast to the beauty of the garden. The bulk of it consisted of a rectangle of flowers surrounded by a dirt path, which was then ringed by a small line of flowers that marked the boundary of the garden. Bees and hummingbirds buzzed around and drank nectar, then darted away, running a final errand before a storm. Overhead, the clouds had turned nasty and dark, but there was still no breeze. I couldn’t wait for it to rain so we could have some relief from the heat.

“Pretty right?” Elise said. She walked into the garden, then sat on the bench and patted the spot next to her. “This is my favorite spot on GCU. I didn’t know it was here until a few days ago.

I sat next to her and sighed. “You still want to know?” I asked.

“Yup. Tell me it all.”

I recounted the events of last night as quickly as I could. We went to an asylum for fun, found a death threat to all of Hope that might be magic, gave it to Willow because they wanted it, and went home. I told her that Annabelle was mad that Darius and I didn’t tell her about the letter, and now she wanted it back. I left out any detailed explanation of magic or finding the other body. There was no need to get too into the weeds now.

As I talked, Elise nodded along as if what I was saying wasn’t completely and totally ridiculous. She stopped me to ask an occasional clarifying question, but she didn’t seem confused or like she didn’t believe me. When I finished the story she rolled her eyes again.

“That wasn’t as complicated as you made it out to be,” she said.

“What? You’re- I said the letter was magic. Literal magic.”

“Yeah, I know. Annabelle talked to me a bit about it. Complained about this Madame Grace person. She claims that she’s a witch right?”

“Yeah, she does, but you- you believe this? In magic and witches?”

She made a so-so gesture. “I doubt the two of you are bullshitting me for fun, but I have no idea if what you’re calling magic is actually magic. It could be something else, but it sounds like something is going on. I’d like to check it out myself.

“I think we’re better off not fucking with it,” I said. “That letter is scary. I know it doesn’t seem that scary from what I said, and maybe it’s not magic, but that doesn’t matter. There is something wrong with it.”

“I’m not saying I want to see the letter. I just want to talk to Madame Grace. Maybe get a demonstration of some magic. You have no idea how many really crafty people are who’ve made millions by pretending to have magic powers. It’s a whole thing.”

“You don’t want to mess with Madame Grace either. She’s dangerous,” I warned.

“She is? How?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. Annabelle had already looped into half of it. I’d finish the job. “She might’ve maybe killed someone. Or something. I don’t really know. I found another body the other day and she seemed like she knew who it was. People are dying and even if she’s not killing them. She has something to do with it.”

Silence stretched out between us as Elise chewed over what I just told her. I looked up at the sky. I wished it would rain right now and cut this conversation short, but it was also nice to talk about what happened with someone who hadn’t been involved in any of it.

“That would’ve been nice to know, but better late than never,” Elise said, breaking the silence. “By the way, what does Annabelle even want with the letter? You didn’t say.”

“I don’t fucking know why she wants it. I don’t think she knows. She just does,” I replied.

Elise laughed. It seemed forced. “Yeah, she’s like that.” Elise paused. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I’m not attacking you when I say this, but if Madame Grace and the letter are dangerous, then is it really a good idea to let her go alone?”

“Darius is with her. Willow is there too. She’s not alone,” I said.

“Yeah, but safety in numbers right? If we were there, we could keep an eye on her.”

“You just want to go, don’t you?” I asked.

She gave me a sheepish smile. “Yeah, I do. I really want to check this out, but I think my other reason for wanting to is solid too, don’t you?”

It wasn’t a bad one, I had to admit that much. I didn’t think Madame Grace was going to do anything to hurt any of them, but there was no guarantee. I’d thought the asylum would be fun and lighthearted and look what that had turned into. I groaned. “Fuck. Fine. We can go. I’ll tell Annabelle to wait,” I said. I took out my phone and checked my texts. The last one I got was one from Darius, informing me that Annabelle couldn’t get the letter from Willow, and now the three of them were going to Madame Grace’s.

That was 10 minutes ago.

“They’re already there,” I said.

“Call them, see what’s going on.”

I did, but Annabelle’s phone went straight to voice mail. Darius rang for a long time, but he didn’t pick up. Neither did Willow. Anxiety ballooned inside my chest. I got up from the bench and threw my backpack over my shoulder. “Come on. We’ll go. They’re not answering me.”

“Lead the way,” Elise said.

Elise and I weaved back through campus at a brisk walk. Every minute or so, I’d pull check phone to see if anyone messaged me. I came up empty every time. Overhead, loud grumbles of thunder boomed in the sky. The air became heavier. I hoped we weren’t about to get caught in the storm.

As soon as Elise got to the street that ran downtown, the first drops of rain fell from the sky. They were heavy and fat. A few seconds later the heavens opened and buckets of water started to fall. I took off my backpack and hugged it to my chest. I’d paid so much fucking money for my textbooks. I’d kill someone if they got ruined now.

“Are we close?” Elise shouted.

“We’re almost there!” I shouted back.

We started to run down the sidewalk. By the time we hit Madame Grace’s shop, I was soaked with rain. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I pounded my fist against it. “Open the fucking door!” I shouted. I pounded again, then kicked it. “Please! Open it!”

The door opened.

Madame Grace stood on the threshold, looking as calm as ever. She was dressed in a fancy black dress with an overbust corset over it. “Come in,” she said stepping aside.

Elise and I rushed into the room. Madame Grace shut the door and locked it behind us. Annabelle, Willow, and Darius were sitting at Madame Grace’s table. Willow and Darius looked confused. Annabelle looked as pissed as always. It made me even madder. I’d just ran through the rain for her and Darius. She was not about to yell at me again.

“I was wondering when you would show up,” Madame Grace said. She slid past me and took a seat at her table.

“None of you answered your phones. Why?” I asked.

“No service in here,” Darius said.

“No fucking- are you _serious_ ,” I hissed.

“Yes. He is,” Willow said.

Elise checked her phone, then showed me. zero bars. I was ready to kill someone. I can’t believe I’d let Elise talk me into going, to begin with. “I came to get ya’ll. We’re leaving. We’re not touching whatever this is,” I said, glaring at Madame Grace.

“No, we’re not. You said you didn’t want to come in the first place. You’re not going to make me leave now,” Elise said.

“Serenity, you really should relax. Your emotions are very chaotic,” Madame Grace said.

“I fucking hope they are!” I shouted.

“Okay, let’s take a step back. Does someone want to tell me about what’s going on here? I’ve heard some pretty hard to believe things about witches, magic, and death threats today. I’d love to figure out what’s going on and how involved we are in it.”

Madame Grace gave a tired sigh and swished a hand through the air. “You already know the background it appears. To answer your question, how involved in the situation is up to you. I doubt this Isiah is interested in any of you in particular.” Madame Grace picked up the letter we’d gotten from the asylum and inspected it. She didn’t flinch when she held it. It was as if didn’t even bother her. I didn’t know how it was possible. I could feel the dark emotion that paper carried flitting through the air of the room. “Though I suppose if Isiah is interested in carrying out his threat here, you’ll all be affected eventually. You do live in Hope after all.”

“Yeah, that might be worth worrying about,” Darius said.

“It fucking _might_ be?” I hissed.

“Changed your tune huh? You didn’t give a shit about any of this morning. Glad you’ve realized I was right,” Annabelle snarked.

I was a second away from shouting at her when I felt something pushing a strange pressure at the edge of my consciousness. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever felt. I looked around the room and saw that Madame Grace was staring right through me, her eyes sharp. I met them, and then a powerful sense of serenity and clam tugged me under its thrall. My anger drained out of me. I blinked.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked Madame Grace.

Madame Grace looked away, but the calm feeling stayed. “You were panicking. It was time to calm down.”

“No seriously, what did you do?” Elise asked. “Was that-”

“Magic,” Willow said. “It was magic.”

Elise licked her lips. “Really now? It was?” She looked at me. “Serenity?”

“Yes, it was magic. I am a witch. I thought you already knew that,” Madame Grace said.

“I knew some of it.”

“Now you know more.”

“Can we get back on topic?” Annabelle asked. She jabbed her finger at the letter Madame Grace held. “What are we going to do about that? We have to do something.”

“Whoa whoa, slow down. We don’t have to do anything. She said we were only as involved as we wanted to be,” Darius said.

“He’s going to destroy Hope. You read it yourself,” Annabelle replied.

“Yeah and climate change is slowly killing us all, but I don’t see you frothing out the mouth to do something about that. This seems a bit bigger than us, don’t you think?”

“This is one town, not the world. It’s also my fucking town. You know, the place we all live?”

“None of us will be doing anything right now,” Madame Grace cut in. “We have little information about who Isiah or Maribelle and Waylon are. We cannot fix a problem if we’re not sure it exists.”

“That letter is magic,” Annabelle said. “Good magic, right?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then we should worry.”

“I am concerned as well, but let’s temper it. Panic is not a response I enjoy.”

“You don’t know these people?” Elise asked. “Really?”

“I only have suspicions,” Madame Grace said.

“What are they?” Willow asked. “What do you know?”

“I’d like to know too,” I said.

“If you want to know, sit down,” Annabelle ordered.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” Madame Grace said. “The two of you are dripping water all over my shop. It’s been bothering me since you came in. Let me get you something dry,” Madame Grace said. She got up from her chair, then walked behind her curtain before any of us could get a word in edgewise.

“So what brings you here?” Darius asked me.

“I made her come. I was curious and a bit worried about what was happening,” Elise said.

“They were worried I was going to hurt ya’ll,” Madame Grace said. The curtain parted again, and Madame Grace stepped through with two heavy looking dresses slung over one arm. She had a pitcher of sweet tea and a stack of six glasses were wrapped precariously in the other. She set the pitcher on the table, then set a cup in front of each of the chairs we were sitting at. When she was finished, she parted the curtain again and gestured to Elise and me. “You two may change back here.”

“Are those cursed?” I asked.

“They carry emotion like everything else,” she replied.

“You know what I’m asking.”

Madame Grace smiled. “They’re as normal as you’ll get.”

“Works for me,” Elise said. She walked behind the curtain grabbed a dress from Madame Grace's arm. A small puddle of water marked where she once stood. I shifted back and forth on my feet while I looked at the dress. Accepting a gift from Madame Grace the last time hadn’t ended well. No matter what she said, I was still nervous she’d done something to the dress.

“I would appreciate it if you stopped dripping water on my floor now. I am extending you my courtesy, I’d ask you do the same,” Madame Grace urged, catching me in her piercing eyes.

I didn’t want to take it, but I was wet, miserable, and I really wanted Madame Grace to stop staring at me.

I took the dress and walked behind the curtain.

Behind it was a small bed, a dresser, a desk, the back door to the shop, and bookshelves stacked so high they reached the ceiling. Most of them were filled with books, but some of them were lined with statues and other obscure junk that Madame Grace must’ve collected over the years. The only light that lit up the room came from the myriad of candles and oil lamps that sat on some of the bookshelves. I was shocked that the place hadn’t gone up in flames with how close they were to the books. Elise stood in the corner, about to put on Madame Grace’s dress. All of her other clothes were in a haphazard pile in front of her. I averted my eyes. “Seriously Elise?”

“I’m not wearing wet clothes,” she replied.

“You’re taking this way too far,” I groaned.

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I’m not sure what the point is if I’m being honest.”

I heard the curtain swish, then risked a glance. Elise was back on the other side of the curtain. I sighed with relief, then inspected the dress that Madame Grace gave me. It was a yellowish-white with a skirt that went all way to the floor and puffy sleeves. It was tacky as all hell. The only place a dress like this belonged was at a costume party, but it was better than wearing wet clothes. I undressed and dressed, and when I got the entire thing on, I felt ridiculous. I tried to not dwell too much on the feeling. There was already enough to worry about.

I stepped back into the main room. Darius golf clapped and Elise wolf-whistled. Madame Grace nodded in approval. I glared at all three of them. Elise had on a dress that was similar to mine but in a silver color instead of white. She looked ten times better than I did. She could’ve been a tour guide at some fancy historical museum, whereas I belong with fake blood over my face in a haunted corn maze. I wished I stayed in my wet clothes. It would’ve saved me the brutal contrast.

“That looks good on you,” Willow said.

“The style does work. It’s much better than what you usually wear,” Darius said. “I think you’re missing a corset though, am I right?” he asked Madame Grace.

“You are,” she said.

“It is an improvement for the way you usually dress,” Annabelle said.

I didn’t believe any of what they were saying, but I couldn’t resist taking Annabelle’s bait. “And how’s that?” I asked.

“Like garbage,” Annabelle said, but there was no real heat behind the words.

It stung more than it should’ve. She wasn’t being serious, but my brain wouldn’t stop running over all the ways I looked awful. The reminder that I looked back to other people, even as a joke, didn’t help.

Not that I’d show anyone I felt like that. If people knew they could get under your skin, they wouldn’t stop. I’d perfected the art of brushing off mean comments.

“Thanks, I take pride in it,” I replied. I walked around the table, then took a seat. The cups Madame Grace had set out were full of tea, and I took a sip of it. It felt like it was rotting my teeth as soon as it touched them, but the sweetness was a good distraction from my dysphoria.

“This is a much better atmosphere for the discussion. Now, what do you all want to know that you don’t already?” Madame Grace asked.

“I want to know what you have to do with the people dying here and what you have to do with that letter. It’s magic and that’s what you do,” I said.

“You give me too much credit. Not everything with magic is my doing,” she replied. “Almost none of it is, actually.”

“Right, magic. Could you give me another demonstration of that please? I’m trying to wrap my head around what it is,” Elise asked.

Madame Grace pushed the letter forward. She kept a finger on it. “Touch this paper and you’ll have your demonstration.”

“Don’t. It’s awful,” I said.

“It won’t be nearly as bad as when you touched it, I promise. It’s safe,” Madame Grace said. She looked at Elise. “Do you want your demonstration or not?”

Elise touched the letter with a finger. She stiffened up right away and yanked her finger back. Then, she reached out and touched it again. She let her finger linger on the page before she pulled it away and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yeah, yeah okay. I get it,” she said. “How does it work?”

“I’d like to know too,” Willow said. “I’ve been trying to find that out myself.”

“Secrets come at a price,” Madame Grace said.

“What’s the price?” Willow asked.

“Stop!” Annabelle demanded. “Just fucking stop. We’re staying on topic. You said you had suspicions about who Isiah, Maribelle, and Waylon are. Get to that first.”

“I don’t know who Isiah is, but Maribelle and Waylon are names I’ve heard before. They were the founders of Coastal State Hospital. The Maye doctors. Considering the letter was pinned in their old asylum, it’s reasonable to assume it’s addressed to them.”

“Yeah, but they’re dead right? You’re saying ‘were’ not ‘are,’” Darius said.

“They’re supposed to be dead yes.”

“Supposed to be?” Annabelle asked.

“That is what I said.”

“You’re making it sound like they’re still alive. You know what you're doing,” Elise said. “Do you think they are?”

“I’m not sure what I think. The letter certainly implies they’re alive, doesn’t I?” Madame Grace said. “However, I’d like to find out and it sounds like some of you want something from me. Perhaps we can help each other.”

My stomach sank with dread, tearing away the calmness Madame Grace had forced me to carry. Helping her was the opposite of not getting involved. It was the thing I’d been trying to avoid all along.

“Are you trying to recruit us into your cult? Because it sounds like you’re about to pitch us the idea,” Darius said.

Madame Grace scoffed. “Of course not. I’m not making a cult and I’m not interested in supplicants. I’m suggesting a business arrangement.”

“What are you offering as payment? You’re asking us to go fuck around with people who may or may not be dead who also may or may not be witches. Seems like a good way to get killed. You have to be offering something really good,” Darius replied.

“Yes, what are you offering?” Annabelle asked.

“We’re not seriously considering this are we?” I asked.

“I am. If I agree to help you, will you teach me magic?” Willow asked.

“You want to become a witch?” Madame Grace asked.

“I do”

“What do you want us to do?” Elise asked. “Because my answer is going to depend on that more than what you can give me. I’m not going to take on some impossible task.”

“This is not impossible. It’s rather simple. I want you to check Maribelle and Waylon’s grave.”

“Their graves?” I asked. “How are we supposed to check a grave?”

“By digging it up,” Willow answered. “You want us to dig up graves, right?”

“Correct.”

She was being serious. Jesus. “We don’t even know where they’re buried,” I protested.

“I’m not a fan of desecrating graves. Something about that doesn’t seem right,” Elise said.

“What would it take for you to say yes?” Madame Grace asked.

“I don’t know,” Elise replied.

“I do,” Darius said. “I got tested pretty recently and I carry the genes for Huntington's. It probably going to pop up when I’m older and kill me. Can you cure it?”

Madame Grace hummed to herself. Her eyes flicked up the ceiling before they went back down and landed on Darius. “Yes.”

Darius’s eyes went wide. “You’re bullshitting me,” he accused.

“I’m no liar. I never will be one. If you check Maribelle and Waylon’s graves, I will cure your disease in exchange. As a show of good faith, I’ll cure it before you go on my errand.”

“Stop,” Elise ordered. “Stop. For one second. Maybe magic is real. Maybe. But how do we know you can cure a disease like that? What proof do you have? I trust you, but I want to verify.”

“Yes, I need more to go off of,” Annabelle agreed. “Show us something magic. Really magic. Not just jewelry and letters.”

“The magic you want to see costs power. Power I have to spend. If you agree to my arrangement, I’ll show it to you, but I won’t show anything for free. Not to you.”

Annabelle gritted her teeth. “Fine, what will you give me if I agree then?”

“Name it and I’ll tell you if I can do it.”

“I want to get over something,” Annabelle said slowly. “Can you do that?”

“Vague, but I can try,” Madame Grace replied.

“Try?” Elise said.

“I assume you want me to change your emotions about whatever you’re talking about, correct?” Madame Grace asked.

“Yeah,” Annabelle said.

“How ‘over’ this something are you already?”

“Mostly over it. I just want to kick the last bit. Get it the fuck out of my head and gone forever.”

“The simplest thing to do would be to sever those emotions completely then. Would you like that? You’ll feel as if the event happened to someone else, or if it’s people, that they’re strangers,” Madame Grace said.

Darius let out a low whistle. “Whew, that’s kind of extreme. Sounds like you’re giving her a lobotomy.”

“No, it’s far more elegant and far less crude.”

“You think you can do that?” Annabelle asked.

“I know I can.”

Annabelle met Madame Grace’s eyes. The two of them stared at one another for a long time, before Annabelle broke again. “Sever them then. Show me real magic and I’ll dig up your body,” Annabelle said.

The situation was spiraling out of control. We were striking deals with a witch. “Annabelle, are you sure about this?” I asked.

She closed her eyes and slid her hand to the center of the table palm up. “Yes, I’m fucking sure. So let’s do it.”

Madame Grace set her hand on top of Annabelle’s. “Now tell me what this something is so I can find what I can fix it.”

Annabelle leaned across the table and started to whisper to Madame Grace. Madame Grace nodded every now and again but was otherwise silent. Annabelle was stiff in her chair. Every now and then, she jerked like she’d been shocked with electricity. Her lips never stopped moving and the low sound of her whispering didn’t stop. Madame Grace squeezed her hand tighter, and Annabelle gave the hardest flinch yet and doubled over the table like someone had punched her in the gut.

She stayed like that, twitching and whispering for another ten minutes. It was too much to watch. I reached out to touch Annabelle and make sure she was okay, but Madame Grace's eyes turned to me and I froze. I was helpless before them.

“Don’t touch. I’m almost done,” she commanded, then turned back to Annabelle.

I let my hand hit the table. That one look felt like being plunged underwater. I was cold all over again,

Annabelle jerked a few more times, but they became further and further apart and less intense. After another ten minutes, Madame Grace withdrew her hand, then started to strip jewelry off her body.

“Good?” Madame Grave asked.

Annabelle was silent. Her eyes were still closed. I lifted my hand again and nudged her shoulder.

“Annabelle? You there?” I asked.

“Serenity, do not fucking touch me right now,” she ordered.

I yanked my hand back. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Did it work?” Darius asked. “You cured?”

“Yeah. I think.”

“So what’d you get severed?” he asked.

“Shut the fuck up Darius.”

He did. Annabelle went quiet again. Madame Grace finished pulling off her jewelry. A small, messy stack of bracelets and necklaces was piled up next to her. I couldn’t stop looking at them. They had to be where she was drawing power or emotion or whatever else from. It was the only possibility.

“You’re drawing emotion from your jewelry. How? What is magic?” Willow asked.

“Will you check the Maye’s graves?” Madame Grace said.

“Yes.”

Madame Grace stuck out her hand, then pulled it back and stood up. “A moment, please. There are five of you. I don’t want to lose track of what was said. I’ll write up a contract so we will all remember what was agreed and said here today.” She walked behind her curtain then emerged with an old, leather-bound notebook, an ancient feather pen, and a vial of ink. She set them on the table, then started to write.

“I suppose I can tell all of you what magic is. You’ve come this far,” Madame Grace mused. “Magic is simply emotion and will. That’s all.”

“Emotion and will,” Willow repeated. “What is will? Explain.”

“Your ability to imagine something as true. To will it into existence,” Madame Grace replied.

“And emotion?” I asked.

“Self-explanatory.”

“It’s not actually,” I replied.

Madame Grace looked up at me. She was unimpressed. “Everything living thing feels Serenity and feeling causes emotion.”

“So how do I do magic then?” Darius asked. “Do I get someone to punch me in the face, then imagine them spontaneously combusting? Is that how it works?”

“If you could will your enemy to combust, and you had enough emotion to fuel that will, yes,” Madame Grace said.

“So what? Magic can do anything?” I asked.

“I’m sure you can answer that question given what I’ve told you,” Madame Grace replied.

“So I could fly? Turn invisible? Have superpowers?” Darius asked.

Madame Grace sighed and set down her pen. “You’ve been hurt before, correct? Scraped your knee? Gotten a cut?”

“Yeah.”

“You remember what it’s like then. How it feels. Every little thing about it, don’t you?”

Darius frowned. “Not really. I have the basics though.”

“You can recall them if you tried. Now tell me, have you ever flown child? Can you even begin to imagine what that’d be like?” Madame Grace asked. “Could you convince yourself that you will lift our your seat and fly through the air? Could you honestly, truly do it?”

I tried to and couldn’t. Humans didn’t fly. At least not without a lot of help. I could, in theory, imagine someone flying around, but it was too abstract to get a solid grip of. I couldn’t imagine convincing myself that it was about to happen.

“Nah, I can’t,” Darius admitted.

Madame Grace picked up her pen, dipped it in ink, and starting to write again. “Then it seems like flying might be very difficult, doesn’t it?”

“The easier it is to imagine, the easier it is to will,” Annabelle said. She opened her eyes. They were colder than usual. “Right?”

“It is easier to imagine things we’ve seen before and know tend to happen, now isn’t it?” Madame Grace replied.

“How the hell does no one know about magic if it’s so simple then?” Elise asked.

“People do know about it. You do as well. What do you think prayers and sacrifices to God are for? Why are certain places holy? Why do gamblers carry around lucky charms?” Madame Grace asked. “It’s all magic, just crudely applied. They don’t know how to do it properly and they can’t get consistent results.”

“And you do?” Willow asked.

“Of course I do. We wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t.”

The room went quiet. The only sound the filled it was the scratching of Madame Grace’s pen on the page. I turned over what she’d told me in my mind over and over again. It went against everything I knew, but I couldn’t find another explanation for the jewelry or the note or what she’d done to Annabelle. What Madame Grace was saying was the type of bullshit I made fun of people for believing, but it was all real. It was real and she knew how to make it work all the time except just sometimes.

She was the real deal.

We were in over our heads.

Despite the danger, she’d given Annabelle what she wanted and she told Darius she could cure his disease. What could she do for me? Could she change my body? I looked down at my lap. I knew I couldn’t. Even I knew magic, I couldn’t imagine myself as beautiful. I knew that much. Maybe she could though. Maybe her offer wasn’t too bad.

“The contract is complete,” Madame Grace said. She turned around the notebook and showed the five of us. The document was short. It consisted of four simple clauses.

  1. Madame Grace shall give payment before the completion of an errand. The payment will be equal to the difficulty and danger of the task.
  2. By signing this contract, I agree that I will complete the errand I have received payment for the best of my abilities, within a time frame as established by Madame Grace.
  3. By signing, I agree that I will not lie, cheat, betray, or otherwise harm Madame Grace.
  4. This contract applies on an errand-to-errand basis. It can be terminated by any party at any time, given that all payments have been made and all errands are complete.



“Is it agreeable?” Madame Grace asked. “I’m sure there are loopholes, but I play by the spirit of the rules, not the letter. If you think you’re going to outwit me using this document, you’re a fool. This is to remind you all of what you’re agreeing to, and for me to note what I have promised you. No more, no less.”

“Give me the pen,” Annabelle ordered.

Madame grace did and Annabelle signed it with a flourish. “Who’s next?”

“Me. You will teach me magic in exchanging for checking the Maye’s graves,” they said.

“I will teach you some, but not all. This errand is only worth so many secrets,” Madame Grace replied.

“Deal.”

Madame Grace made a quick note on the contract, then handed the pen to Willow. They signed below Annabelle’s name.

“Any other takers?” she asked.

Darius looked at me, then shrugged. “I’ll take my chance,” he said, then took the pen and signed the contract. “Now, cure me,” he said, putting his hand where Annabelle’s once was.

Madame Grace grabbed his hand and closed her eyes. The minutes felt like hours and Darius didn’t seem to be affected by whatever she was doing. He wasn’t stiff like Annabelle, and his eyes were wide and alert. After a long ten minutes of silence, he asked, “is this working? Are we done?”

“Yes, it is. You’re cured,” Madame Grace said.

“I am?”

“Yes, you are.”

Darius's face went blank, then a massive grin stretched across his face. “I’m fucking cured! You hear that? This magic shit works I’m-”

He made a choking noise and went as still as Annabelle. Madame Grace squeezed his hands. Her eyes were piercing again, and she stared at Darius, seeing right through him, seeing past the walls of the room and to somewhere else. Darius's mouth stayed open and the choking noises continued until Madame Grace suddenly withdrew her hand. Darius bent over and gasped for breath.

“What- what the fuck?” he asked. “What- why?”

“I cured you,” Madame Grace said.

“You fucking- you-” Darius started to cough. They came from deep in his chest, but they sounded dry. His entire body started to shake.

“He’ll be fine,” Madame Grace assured. She took off more jewelry and placed it in the pile next to her. “Now, who’s next?” She turned to me. “Serenity?”

“Darius are you okay?” I asked. I touched his shoulder. He wiped his mouth and grinned up at me. He looked exhausted, but it didn’t put a dent in his smile. He sat back up straight and sank back in his chair.

“I’m good. That fucking hurt but I’m good. And if it worked, it was worth it. Fuck it was worth it.”

“Serenity, would you like to sign?” Madame Grace asked again.

She’d done it again. Proved herself. I bounced my leg under the table.“You said magic was emotion and you calmed me down before. You made me. You can manipulate how people feel. Is that what you’re doing now? To get us to work with you?” I asked.

“No.”

“How do I trust that?”

“I don’t lie Serenity,” she said. She grabbed her penned, then signed her own contract. “I never will. I take pride in it. Now, I’ll ask you a third and final time, would you like to sign?”

“Only if you can fix my body,” I blurted out.

“Fix?” she asked. “What’s wrong with it?”

Where to begin? There was so much wrong. So much I wanted to change, but my ideas of what I wanted were loose. I couldn’t have her do anything too complicated, because what she saw me as and how I saw myself as were bound to be different. I didn’t want to risk a mistake and make everything worse. I needed something simple.

“My shoulders,” I said. They were something no doctor in the world could fix, but they were still simple. It was an impossible task or would’ve been for anyone that wasn’t Madame Grace. “They’re too broad. I want them to be smaller. Less masculine. Can you do that?”

“I can try. Remember, I do not promise perfection, but I swear I will leave you better than you were before,” she said. She handed me the pen. “Now sign.”

I looked down at the paper, then signed it without looking in what may have been the most impulsive decision I ever made in my life. My heart pounded in my chest. My adrenaline raced. It was the same feeling I spent so much of my time chasing. Before I could have second thoughts, I stuck my hand where Darius’s had been and shut my eyes.

“Do it,” I said.

Madame Grace grabbed my hand, then something wormed its way inside of me. It crept past anything physical, intruding deep into a part of me I hadn’t even known was there. Her magic spread out until it touched everywhere inside of me, then settled with a low dull tingle.

Then it turned into a fire.

I wanted to scream but couldn’t.

The magic burning inside of me flicked through every conceivable emotion so quickly that I couldn’t keep track of what was what anymore. It was like I was running on a treadmill that kept getting faster and faster, but also one I couldn’t fall off. I felt like I was being turned inside out and flayed. All my instincts screamed at me to pull away, but I resisted. This was my only chance at something like this. No doctor could do what she was doing. I had to let it happen.

I bent forward and rested my head against the table, then turned my head and bit my arm. The pain cut through the storm of emotion and the burning. It was more immediate, more present than either. I bit down harder, using the pain to ground me. Time faded away. All that mattered was staying grounded, staying me, not losing myself to the riot of emotion and pain.

Somehow, I managed to hang on.

After an eternity, the burning and emotion abruptly stopped. The only pain that remained came from my teeth in my arm. I let go.

“Serenity,” someone said. They sounded far away. There was a snapping noise happening somewhere around my face, but I didn’t open my eyes.

“Serenity, we’re done,” they said again. A hand touched my shoulder and a shot of pain raced through me. I jerked up in my chair and away from the hand, as my eyes flew open. The world came back into focus around me. Darius was standing right next to me, his hand hovering over my shoulder with a look of concern on his face. Annabelle looked at me from her chair, looking just as worried.

“Done,” Madame Grace said. I heard the sound of jewelry hitting the table. I lifted my head. The pile next to Madame Grace was sizable, but it was barely a candle compared to how much jewelry she still had on. Madame Grace looked tired. Lines I’d never noticed before cut deeply into her face, but still looked better than I probably did. I shuddered. She could change bone, cut emotion off, and cure disease, and still have room to do more.

“Are you okay Serenity?” Elise asked.

“Fine,” I muttered. “I’m- I’m fine.”

“How are your shoulders?” Willow asked.

I rolled them and hissed at the burning sensation it caused. It felt like all the muscles and ligaments had been cut into with a sharp knife over and over again. They were intact through. They made every twitch I forced them to, and there was no numbness. I lifted a hand and prodded my right shoulder. It felt the same as it always had. I couldn’t tell how much smaller they were now. I’d have to save it for later.

“I’ll sign, but I want to save my payment for later. Does that work?” Elise asked.

“Yes, it does.”

“Good,” Elise said. She grabbed the pen, the signed the page. “When I think of something good, something that I need, I’ll let you know.”

“One last thing, while we’re all here,” Darius said. He pulled out his phone and set it on the table. “We need to loop Arif in. Ask him if he wants to join us.

“He won’t want to,” I said. “He made that pretty clear back at the asylum.”

“He might. We didn’t get paid for going to the asylum. We’re getting paid here. Plus, if I don’t tell him, he’s going to kill me. May as well get it out of the way now.”

"This is waste of time. We shouldn't call him," Annabelle said.

"I'm going to anyway," Darius replied.

“What if he says no?” Willow askes.

“Then he says no. I don’t think it’s a problem.”

Willow looked to Madame Grace. “Is it?” they asked.

“Call him if you’d like,” Madame Grace said. “I won’t reject more help.”

“Just do it,” Annabelle said. “Let’s get it over with.”

Darius started the call and the phone rang for a long minute. Just when I thought it was going to go to voice mail, Arif picked up. “Hello?”

“Arif, what’s up,” Darius said. “How are you?”

“Fine. Why are you calling me? And am I on speaker? You sound far away.”

“You are,” Annabelle said.

“Alright, why am I on speaker then?” Arif asked. “And is that Annabelle?”

“We are going to dig up a grave at some point in exchange for various forms of magical payment from Madame Grace. Darius called you to ask if you would like to join us,” Willow explained.

Darius's slapped his forehead. I didn't blame him. Of all the ways to deliver the message, that had to be one of the worst.

Arif went quiet for a few seconds, then exploded. “What the fuck are you on about? Dig up a grave? Magical favors? Are you high?” he shouted.

“Willow is making it sound worse than it is,” Darius said.

“How? That is exactly what we’re doing,” Willow said. They looked around the table. “Isn’t it?”

It sort of was. I couldn't find a better way to frame it at the moment.

“Is this- Darius is this joke? Are you fucking with me?” Arif asked. He almost sounded hopeful. “Because if this is a joke, it is the least funny one I’ve heard in my entire life, but at least if it’s a joke I know you’re not fucking crazy.”

Darius smiled. “Yeah, see this isn’t a joke. I’m being serious. Madame Grace is the real deal. She’s an actual witch. She cured my Huntington’s Arif. I’m cured.”

“Did she now?” Arif asked. “And how the fuck are you so sure of that?”

“Because she just did other magic too,” Annabelle said. “Look, we’re not digging up random graves. We’re digging up the graves of Maribelle and Waylon, the founders of Coastal State. You know, the fucked up asylum you went running around in? I don’t know anything about them, but I’m going to take a wild guess and assume they weren’t great people. Plus, we’re not hurting anyway. At worst, it’s some vandalism.”

I liked the way Annabelle explained it much more than I liked the way Willow had. Annabelle’s explanation covered more of our bases. It also made us sound much more morally neutral than Willow had.

“Alright, let’s say I believed you. Let’s just say I did, what makes you think this is going to go well? Do you even know the first thing about digging up graves or did you just decide that it was going to be easy?”

“How hard it is doesn’t matter. The rewards are worth it,” Annabelle said.

“Right, the magic rewards. How could I have forgotten about that?” Arif said sarcastically.

“If you don’t want us to bother you about this, we won’t. I was kind of sketched out at first too. I think I still am. You don’t have to join us if you don’t want to,” Elise said.

“Wait is that Elise? All 5 of you agreed to this? Was this planned?”

“No, it wasn’t. Just a happy accident that we’re all here,” Darius said

“I don’t know if that makes this worse or better.”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not what we called to ask. Just tell us if you’re in or out,” Annabelle said.

Arif went silent. If it weren’t for Darius’s call timer ticking upwards, I would’ve thought he’d hung up.

“No. I’m not getting involved in any of this. At all. None of you should either. You all know that this a bad idea. I know you do. Whatever you think you’re going to get out of it isn’t going to be worth it. Don’t do this,” Arif said.

“Bit late for that,” Darius replied.

Arif sighed. “You're all fucking idiots. I’m not going to stop you, I doubt I even could, but I don’t want to hear about this if it goes bad. If you fuck yourselves over, I’m not helping you unfuck yourselves. I don’t- I’m not getting involved in fucking magic. I don’t care. I want to go to school, not dig up graves.”

“So you’re out?” Annabelle asked.

“Fuck yes, I’m out.”

Annabelle looked at Darius. “You heard him, he’s out.”

“Darius, come on man, think about this more. You know how this is going to end.”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll talk to you later.”

Arif groaned in raw frustration. “You’re going to regret this. All of you are.”

“Bye Arif.”

“Bye,” Arif muttered, then hung up.

Darius slipped his phone back into his pocket and ran a hand over his head. “Well, that went well. He reacted better than I thought he would.”

“He’ll get over himself,” Annabelle said.

“Yeah, I’m sure he will. If he doesn’t, it’s not a big deal,” Darius replied.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Darius had just gotten himself rearranged by Madame Grace and yelled at by one of his friends, but he barely looked bothered. The only indication there was anything wrong was that his smile wasn’t quite reaching his eyes.

“If he ever changes his mind, he can sign the contract,” Madame Grace said. “Our arrangement is on an as-needed basis after all.”

“I’ll let him know,” Darius said.

“He said he didn’t want to know though,” Willow replied.

“You’re piling a lot on him you know. You were only at Coastal State last night. Give him a week to cool down and maybe broach the topic then. Or maybe one of you can show off what you got from Madame Grace and that will convince him,” Elise said.

Annabelle rolled her eyes. “We don’t need him to be a part of this. Five of us is plenty.”

“I’ll at least apologize for this,” Darius said. “I probably owe him that right?”

“Are you being serious?” I asked.

“Am I?”

I was too tired to figure it out. Whatever was going on in Darius’s head was too complicated for now. When I was in less pain, I’d think about it and try to answer the question again.

“Before you leave, I encourage you to take some jewelry. You three especially will find it pleasing to wear,” Madame Grace said, gesturing to the pile next to her.

“Sure,” Elise said, reaching forward.

“You’re going to take them?” Annabelle asked.

Elise grabbed three necklaces and a dull golden-colored bracelet and started to put them on. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“They suck up emotion and if you get enough bad ones, they feel like shit,” Annabelle said. “Right?”

“Yes, they can become uncomfortable, but if that happens, simply take off whatever jewelry it is and return it to me. I will replace it.”

“See? No problem,” Elise said.

“I signed the contract, I am not trying to harm you. What I’m offering really will help you through the pain your payments have caused.”

I reached out to grab some jewelry, but the muscles shifting in my shoulder sent a stab of pain racing through me. I sat back in my chair. “Darius, grab me some,” I said.

Darius slipped two necklaces, two bracelets, a silver-colored ring onto my body. The pain in my shoulders didn’t drain, but it did become more manageable; no loner dominating my every thought. I clutched my necklaces tight and moaned in relief.

“Hot,” Darius said.

My blush felt like it went down to my neck. I wish I could’ve hit him. “Darius, shut up.”

“Just speaking facts,” he replied.

Darius, Annabelle, and Willow split the last of jewelry three ways. Annabelle and Darius ended up with slightly more, but Willow didn’t seem to mind. They were content with what they managed to take from the pile.

“Now, what is a fair time frame to complete this errand?” Madame Grace asked. “How does two weeks sound?”

Two weeks sounded manageable, but I didn’t really know what we signed up for. It was better to be safe than sorry.

“What if we need more time?” I asked. “Can we get an extension?”

“If you have a good reason for needing one, yes,” Madame Grace said. “I’ll be reasonable if you are as well.”

“We can be reasonable,” Elise said. "But you didn't tell us what happens if we fail."

Madame Grace waved her hand as if it was a silly concern. "I'll simply take back my gifts and we will be even."

I hugged my shoulders. It was the last thing I wanted to happen, but it was fair and it wasn't nearly as harsh of a penalty for failure as I imagined.

"Deal," Elise said. She looked at the rest of us. "Any objections?"

Everyone shook their heads.

“Good. In that case, our negotiations are complete. I’d like ya’ll to leave my shop now. Except for you Willow. I’d like to give you your first lesson.”

“We can’t listen in?” Darius asked.

“If you do, you’ll owe me another errand.”

“We’re not listening in, we’re going home. It’s late and I’m fucking tired, “ Annabelle said. She stood up from her chair, then leaned on the table for support. “Darius, you’re driving.”

“No problem.”

I didn’t want to leave Willow alone with Madame Grace, but I wasn’t going to stick around and indebt myself to Madame Grace.

“Willow, promise me you’ll be safe,” I said.

“There is no danger in my shop,” Madame Grace said.

“Still, promise me. Please?” I asked.

“I will be. I promise,” Willow replied.

It didn’t put me at my ease and I didn’t know what a promise from Willow really meant et, but I’d take what I could get. “Thank you.”

Madame Grace stood up and rounded the table, then unlocked the door and opened it for us. Outside, the rain had become a slow drizzle instead of a torrential downpour, continuing to feed the massive puddles that had gathered on the streets and some of the sidewalks. The streetlights lit up the rainy night and I shivered even though it was hot.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you,” Madame Grace said, looking back at the five of us with a smile.


	8. Stones Unturned - 1.8

I stared into the mirror and twisted around, trying to get as many different angles of my shoulder in it as possible before I looked down at my phone and cross-referenced how they looked with the picture there. Madame Grace had made good on her promise. They were smaller. It wasn’t much, but a little bit made a big difference. I looked less broad now. More feminine. My shoulders could’ve belonged to a particularly stocky woman or a rather slim man. I let out a happy. My shoulders still hurt and the muscles inside of them were all twisted up, but that couldn’t cut through the euphoria of a part of my body finally being _right_.

My bracelets click against each other as I rubbed at my shoulder, and I raised my wrist to inspect them. They were like the best painkiller in the world. They sucked up physical and emotional pain and left me feeling a bit more human.

Which was precisely the problem.

It’d be so easy to get addicted to what they do, and if I did, Madame Grace would have the perfect thing to dangle in front of my face, something to string me along even when we finished her first “errand.” The fear itched at the back of my mind, but the jewelry took that feeling and made it seem less bad like it was trying to convince me that relying on it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I’d have to take them off as soon as my shoulders were better.

Maybe.

I ran a hand and through my hair, then swallowed down my pills and for the living room. There were more important things to worry about now, like how we were going to pull off our errand, starting with finding out where the hell Maribelle and Waylon were buried. If they were the founders of Coastal State, they were either going to be buried in some random private family graveyard or at Hope Regional Cemetery. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Hope Regional had a grounds-keeper, a nice fence, and people who would definitely notice that two graves had been dug up, but if they were in a family graveyard we were going to have to sneak onto someone's property and spend hours there digging without getting caught.

The sound of Bailey and Taylor talking to one another and rummaging around drifted up the stairs, a reminder that I was up way later than I should’ve been. I wanted to go back to the guest room and sleep again, but the pain in my shoulders and all the thoughts bouncing around in my head refused to let me sleep. If I went back, all I’d do was stare up at the ceiling wide awake.

There was also the problem of sharing the room with Darius.

It wasn’t _bad_ by any means. Darius was a heavy sleeper and he stayed on his side of the bed, but it was still a lot more intimate than I was comfortable with. I could’ve slept on one of the couches in the living room, but I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to sleep next to someone that attractive, no matter how vulnerable falling asleep beside him felt. At least Darius didn’t share the same problem. He fell asleep with no problems as if he could do it on demand. I’d spent more than a few hours looking down at him and trying to figure out how the hell he pulled it off

The living room was a mess. Annabelle had complained about it when we got back from Madame Grace’s, even though she contributed just as much as I had to the myriad of glasses, bottles, and plates scattered throughout the room. Someone was going to have to clean, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that someone was not going to be Annabelle. I doubted it would be Darius either. He’d cooked for us again last night and he would use that as an excuse for why he shouldn’t have to clean, which mean the task fell on me. At least cleaning was better than doing nothing.

I gathered up all the plates and glasses and put them in the sink to deal with tomorrow, then threw out the rest of the trash. It took much less time than I was hoping it did. I still wasn’t tired. I sighed, accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to sleep tonight, then got out my laptop and started to gather any information I could about Maribelle, Waylon, and Coastal State Hospital. There wasn’t much out there. Half of the results were for Central State Hospital, another asylum somewhere in middle Georgia, while the rest were either useless or short and light on information. After hours of digging, all I managed to do was confirm Maribelle and Waylon’s last name and a bunch of worthless facts about the hospital itself. I couldn’t find any mention of Maribelle and Waylon’s cause of death or even when they died. It was like the information had been scrubbed from the record. It was beyond frustrating. I knew there had to be more out there. No one built an entire hospital and then died with anyone nothing it.

I swapped gears and started to search through GCU’s libraries’ websites. There, I found the jackpot. An edge of exhilaration cut through my exhaustion and I let myself smile. There, in the special collections library, were notes from Maribelle and Waylon when they worked at Coastal State Hospital. There were also archives of old newspapers going back to the 1800s. Newspapers that had to have obituaries. Less exciting, but still useful, were a few books that had been written about Coastal State Hospital. I scribbled down the names of the books, then shut my laptop.

Gray early morning light streamed in from the window, reminding me how early it was. I checked the time. 6:30 AM. I’d been at it all night. My eyes were heavy and now that I was done researching, I was tempted to shut them and go back to sleep. I couldn’t though. I had classes later today, and I knew that napping was only going to make me more tired. I’d just have to suck it up and accept that I was going to be tired all day, which wouldn’t be too hard. This was far from the first all nigher I’d pulled.

Hunger clawed at my stomach and I trudged to the kitchen. May as well eat. If I was lucky, the smell of food would wake Annabelle and Darius up. At least with them around, I wouldn’t be bored. I started to cook, and ten minutes later, Annabelle appeared at the kitchen door, a sour expression on her face. Her hair was messy from sleep, and she didn’t have any of her makeup on. She was dressed in a light pink nightgown that looked like it was made out of silk, that stopped at her upper thigh. I felt a stab of arousal race through me and I struggled to not stare. She looked ten times better than me at my best when she just woke up. It wasn’t fair.

“What’s your problem?” she asked, fixing me with a glare.

I felt a blush creeping its way onto my cheeks and looked away. “Nothing. I’m cooking.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Why the fuck are you doing that instead of sleeping? It’s not even 7 and you don’t have early classes.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” I pointed to Annabelle’s coffee machine. “That’s done by the way. You can have it. Now that you’re awake.”

Annabelle gave the machine a long look, then sighed and started to make herself a mug. “So what, you were up all night? Doing what?”

“Research. I found some leads about Maribelle and Waylon. There are some books in the library about Coastal State and there are some of their notes in special collections.” I turned off the burner and dropped the last piece of french toast onto a plate. “I couldn’t find their cause of death or where they were buried anywhere online though. There is almost nothing there.”

“You think they’re still alive then?” she asked.

“I don’t know. They’re old. It might not have been archived yet. That’s why we’re going to the library.”

Annabelle opened the fridge, then dumped two shots full of creamer into her coffee. Then, she opened another cabinet, got out sugar, and dumped so much in I expected to see it pile up on the top of the coffee. I didn’t know if what she was drinking could be accurately called coffee.

“You drink that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.

“Yeah, I do, is that a problem?”

I got syrup out and sat at the table with my french toast. Annabelle grabbed a plate and sat across from me.

“No, just a question.”

“How are your shoulders?” Annabelle asked.

“They hurt, but they’re alright. It was worth it.” I dumped syrup all over my french toast and took a bite. “Did you get over Elise?” I asked.

“That’s who you think I cut out? Are you fucking serious?”

“Who else would it be?”

“My parents. You’re not the only one with a shitty family. I told you, I’m over Elise, you’re the one who always brings her up.” Annabelle leaned across the table. I could feel her eyes burning into my face. I didn’t look up from my plate. “Look at me,” she ordered.

“Why?”

“Because I told you to.”

“That’s not-”

“Do it.”

I looked up. She looked intense. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips were quirked down in a frown. “Stop being jealous.”

I blanched. “I’m not jealous. What the fuck are you-”

“You are,” she replied.

Her gaze trapped me the same way Madame Grace’s did. She saw right through me, prodding at places that I didn’t want to touch, let alone think over. The worst part was that I kind of liked it. All of her attention was on me. It made butterflies and heat explode inside of me.

“I’m not,” I said, quieter this time.

Annabelle took a drink of her coffee, then finally looked down at her plate and cut a piece of french toast. “How long do you think you’re going to stay here for?” she asked.

The question cut through the arousal in me and twisted it into anxiety. Right. It’d been a few days now and I hadn’t shown any signs of leaving. Of course, she was starting to wonder.

“As long as you let me I guess.”

“Is your house actually that bad?”

“What does that bad mean?”

“They hitting you or something?” Anabelle asked.

“What? No, no it’s- you know my mom. You’ve seen her and you know Hope First. She’s just shitty. My dad too. They’re fucking obnoxious and we can’t have a single conversation where they don’t bring up me being trans and how much they hate it, but they don’t hit me. Nothing like that.”

“So your solution for that is to live here?”

I shrugged. “I guess? It’s a solution. Until I get a job or something and can afford my own place. My parents aren’t helping me with college. Obviously.”

“My sisters are bitching about you to my parents. My mom texted me yesterday and asked what was going on.”

I started to bounce my leg. Was she implying that was a problem?

“What’d you tell her?” I asked.

“That I had some friends staying over.”

“Was she mad?”

“No, my mom doesn’t care that you’re here, but t my sisters are fucking obnoxious and she wanted to say she tried.”

“So it’s not a problem that we’re staying here?”

Annabelle went quiet and continued to eat. My stomach roiled in protest. I had to put my fork down. I was too tired for this. Why couldn’t we have had this conversation when I was more awake? Or…had she planned it? Was she only bringing it up now because she knew I was tired?

Annabelle finished her piece of french toast, got another, then ate half of it. She still hadn't spoken. I felt like I was going to explode.

“So is it?” I asked.

“It’s not for me,” she replied.

“Are you just saying that or do you really mean it?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”

I had no way of telling if that was true. I’d seen Annabelle lie. I knew just how good she was at it. I gave Annabelle a skeptical look, but she just kept eating, giving nothing away. All I could do was accept what she was saying on its face. If she was lying, then I’d find out sooner or later.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, you’re fucking welcome.”

My appetite was ruined, but I forced myself to finish another piece of french toast and drink a cup of coffee. The atmosphere between Annabelle and I had turned awkward, or maybe that was just me. Either way, I didn’t know what to say and it didn’t look like Annabelle was going to fill the silence later.

The sound of footsteps in the hall bounced into the room, and then Darius walked into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. I’d never been more relieved to see him before in my life. He made himself a coffee, then downed it in a few longs swallows. I didn’t know he managed to do it without burning himself. He made himself a second cup, grabbed a plate, then sat down at the table before finally looking at me and Annabelle.

“So what’s up with the weird tension? Did Someone say something mean while I was asleep? Do ya’ll need couples therapy?”

“We’re fine. Serenity says there are some books about Maribelle and Waylon at the library. We’re going to look at that today.” Annabelle said.

“Can’t, I told Arif that I’d hang out with him today.”

“When?” Annabelle asked.

“Last night.”

“When you were drunk?”

“I was tipsy,” Darius corrected. “Also don’t want to let him fall through the cracks you know? If I ignore him because we’re busy being witches, he’s gonna get pissed and I don’t want that to happen. He sounded kind of pissed last night too so gonna try and fix that up too.”

“We didn't’ do anything wrong,” Annabelle said. “And we’re not fucking witches.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

So much for Darius clearing the awkwardness in the room, but at least it wasn’t between me and Annabelle now.

I wandered out of the kitchen and back to the living room, then did my homework and reading for my classes. It was not good work. I barely paid attention to anything that I was supposed to read, but I hoped that it would be good enough anyway. Darius and Annabelle disappeared into her room, getting ready for the day. When I finished my homework, they still hadn't left her room. I wanted to poke my head in and see what the hell was taking them so long, but I resisted the urge and got cleaned up myself. My preparation took five minutes compared to the nearly two hours they were taking. All I did was put on a new pair of shorts, a plain white shirt, and brushed my hair.

I stepped out of the guest room at the same time Annabelle and Darius emerged from her room. Both of them looked as flawless as usual, but it was hard to believe that it took an hour of work. I didn’t say anything though and the three of us walked downstairs and piled in Darius’s car. Darius drove much faster than I would’ve liked, but both he and Annabelle and him were going to be late for their classes if they didn’t. For once, I got to watch other people worry. I didn’t have anywhere to be until 10.

We got to campus at 8:55 and Annabelle and Darius took off to their classes in the stuffiest, funniest fast walk I’d ever seen. They reminded of British nobles who’d been called to a sudden meeting with the queen. I trailed after them, my hands in my pockets, trying to figure out how I was going to kill an hour until I had class.

It was decided for me when I got to the quad.

Two students stood on the path, their arms piled high with newspapers. They tried to hand them out to whoever passed. More people than I thought took one. Seeing them reminded me of the story I’d given Mary, and I made my way towards them, curious as to what she wrote. After I got my paper, I sat back under the same tree I watched Arif play frisbee under. On the front page, there was a shot of the lynching tree in daylight, a woman’s face, and a huge bold title with Mary’s name under it. I read it.

**MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES AND SUICIDES SPIKE IN HOPE ******

********

**  
******  


_One of Hope’s ugliest and more pervasive problems reared its head in the past week. In that time, the Hope Police Department has found the bodies of three men and is investigating the disappearance of one woman. The police state that all three deaths appeared to be by suicide or overdose, but one officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he suspected foul play. He pointed to the body found in South Hope’s memorial cemetery, where slaves and criminals were buried in the past, as an example. The man, named Garret Day, was found hanged on a tree that used to be the site of many lynching and extrajudicial killings in Hope. Mr. Day was found by two local students, who reported the incident to the police._

****

_Mr. Day was a pillar of the local Hope community. An active member of Saint Padua Catholic Church, he was described by his friends as easy going, kind, and considerate. Mr. Day was a retired psychiatrist and provided free, informal counseling to members of his parish. His fellow church members and friends said that they did not understand why Mr. Day had taken his own life. Clarissa, Mr. Day’s wife, expressed a similar sentiment, reporting that her husband had a zest for life and had never expressed any intention to harm himself. She also claimed that Mr. Day did not have any history of mental illness, a claim supported by his friends and community members. Mrs. Day insists that her husband was murdered and is petitioning the police to treat his death as a homicide. The local Hope Police department did not make comment on whether they planned to do so._

****

_One of the students who found the body, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, described what it was like to find the body. He reported Mr. Day as appearing wealthy and well taken care of. Mr. Day’s hands were free and there did not appear to be a struggle. This recounting of events lines up with police reports. The student reported that the body had a strong stench associated with it, suggesting that Mr. Day had been dead for several days. This matches up with reports Mrs. Day has made about her husband being missing since last Friday. The student described finding Mr. Day as “horrible” and expressed concern for how Mr. Day’s death was being treated among the student body of GCU. He stated that students did not appear to be taking the incident as seriously as he believed it should be, and expressed concerns about the safety of their fellow students._

****

_In addition to the incident of Mr. Day, two men, both appearing to be homeless, were found in bushes in North Hope. They both died holding empty bottles of alcohol. Police state they died of alcohol poisoning. The official identity of the two men has not been discovered, but Bishop Ulrich, the leader of Hope First Baptist Church, reported that he recalled seeing the men accepting food at the soup kitchen run by his church. He has also stated that if no one comes forward to claim the bodies, that he will pay the fees to have the bodies interred at Hope Regional Cemetery._

****

_Finally, Mrs. Greene was reported missing by her husband last Friday, after not coming home from work. Police have launched a search for the missing woman. Mr. Greene has stated that his wife would have never left town without telling him and strongly believes that she is in danger. Police are encouraging anyone who has any information about Mrs. Greene to report it._

****

_All of this chaos has led to a scary and unprecedented start to GCU’s first semester. When contacted to comment on this string of incidents, GCU officials replied that the incidents were “isolated in nature” and that “the police and authorities will quickly solve the cases.” When asked if the University planned to inform students about the cases, the University replied that the “police had the situation under control and that there was no need to panic.” It also insisted that it already takes many precautions to keep students safe. It has not recommended students change their behavior or take additional precautions._

****

_While the University’s optimism is appreciated, it does not appear to be well earned. This is not the first time that Hope has seen a spike in murders and disappearances. In fact, this weekend's recent cases are another addition to the many unsolved missing persons and murders that Hope has experienced for many years now. Even when police have tracked down formerly missing persons, those persons refused to talk about investigators or insisted that they never lived in Hope at all, even when presented with evidence that they had. This has left police at a dead end, and it does not appear that they have any more of a lead now than they have in past years._

****

_Unlike GCU, Hope police released a more cautious statement, promising to investigate the disappearance of Mrs. Greene. They did not suggest or promise that they had any new leads or had made a breakthrough in past cases. They stated that Hope’s citizens should remain vigilant and promised to provide updates on the cases as they moved forward and have encouraged Hope residents to exercise additional caution._

****

By the time I finished reading, a knot of anxiety had formed in my stomach. Things were even worse than I thought. I looked down at the paper and at the smiling face of Mrs. Greene. Was she dead too? Had Isiah killed her? Did Maribelle and Waylon? Were they responsible for all the missing people?

****

As my anxiety grew, the burn in my shoulder did too. I grabbed onto the necklaces I wore and forced myself to calm down. Whatever was going on, we were now in the thick of. There was no way around it. I was positive that I’d stumbled across two of the bodies mentioned in the article and I was also positive that they weren’t suicides or overdoses. Not with the way Madame Grace had talked about it and not with the way Mr. Day looked.

****

I folded up the newspaper, stuck it in my bag, and sat back and watched the quad. More people were starting to wake up and go to class. Only a few stopped for papers, but I watched as that change. One woman showed it to her friends, and then the entire group doubled back and all got their own. A group of guys saw them do it and got their own, no doubt curious about what the big deal was. In less than 15 minutes, most people who walked through the quad had a paper in their hand. I was glad I told Mary to not use my name. The rumor mill would be turning after this.

****

Thinking of rumors reminded me of the favor Mary owed me, and I shot her a text, asking if she found out what cop outed me. I didn’t know what I was going to do with the information once I had it, but that wasn’t as important as getting it to begin with. Whoever that bastard was had put me in the line of fire. If he knew who I was, then I wanted to know him.

****

My phone vibrated and I found that Annabelle and Darius had texted the group chat, asking me why the hell I gave an interview to Mary. I typed out a brief explanation, then told everyone to meet me in the library after they were finished with their classes for research. It felt like an hourglass had been flipped and we were now on a time limit. It did nothing to help my anxiety, but along with it came that familiar sense of excitement. Something was happening. Something big. It was scary and if I’d known everything I knew now, I would’ve never gotten involved, but it was too late now. I may as well enjoy whatever thrill this gave me.

****

I shouldered my bag, then headed to my class. One or two people shot me a look, but it was easy to brush off. I didn’t like the attention, but I was used to it. They could stare if they wanted.

****

I knew something they didn’t.

****

****

_

****

**  
**

My class passed and I had no idea what it was about. I was too tired and Mary’s article was much more interesting to think about than whatever my professor was talking about. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one distracted. Nearly every student had papers on their desk or on the floor and a few weren’t even pretending to pay attention to my professor. He didn’t seem to care. He was young and jaded. I bet he would’ve lectured to an empty room so long as he got his paycheck and got to go back to his office and do whatever it was that he actually cared about.

****

He ended class 5 minutes with a tired sigh and students poured back out into the hall. I joined them and headed towards the library. If the library wasn’t ruined for me, I would’ve tried to take a nap before everyone else got there. Maybe it was good that I couldn’t. If I slept now, I wasn’t going to want to do research later.

****

The library was quiet when I entered it, and I headed straight up to the highest floor where the special collections library was. There was only one other person on the floor, an older looking woman paging through a book at a desk wedged into the corner of the room. She had long dark hair, tan skin, and was dressed casually. She glanced up when I exited the stairwell, then marked her book and shot me a smile.

****

“Hi, is there anything I can help you find today?” she asked.

****

“Yeah, I’m looking for notes from Maribelle and Waylon Maye? They were the founders of Coastal State Hospital and I saw they were here,” I said.

****

The woman nodded and stood up, making her around the counter and shifting a strand of her hair out of her face. “Of course. Are you a psychology student?” she asked.

****

“No, I’m just curious.”

****

“Why’s that?” she asked. She led me past a few glass displays with books and other things locked behind them and into a circular reading room that took up most of the top floor. There were several worn wooden tables set a bit apart from one another, as well as an ancient-looking pair of rocking chairs cordoned off by a square rope in the center of the room.

****

“They’re interesting is all. Do you know anything about them?” I asked.

****

“I know a little bit. Do you have a question you’d like answered?”

****

“Do you know how they died?”

****

“It’s a bit of mystery actually. They were buried by friends and their friends never chose to talk about how they died.”

****

“How do you know that?”

****

“Because their obituary didn’t state cause of death.”

****

The papers. Fuck. I’d forgotten about them entirely. God, I needed to sleep. All-nighters were the worst.

****

“Can I have those too, please? I’d like to see them.”

****

“Of course, but before I go, I need to go over some ground rules. I’m sure you already know this, but no eating or drinking when you’re handling the materials. They cannot leave this reading room. When you’re done with your research, let me know and I’ll take them back. Does that all make sense?”

****

“Yes ma’am.”

****

“Good! Give me a few minutes, I’ll be back soon,” she said. I watched her walk across the room, then pull a ring of keys from her pocket. She stopped in front of a heavy wooden door, selected a key, unlocked the door, and walked in, letting it swing shut behind her.

****

I took a seat at a table and tapped my fingers on the table. I should've gotten more coffee before I came. I hadn’t had enough earlier. I put my arms down and rested my head on top of them and shut my eyes, if only for a few seconds.

****

Less than a minute later, I heard the swung open and I looked up. The woman was back with a small box and thick folder in her hand. Please be careful with these,” she said, putting them on the desk in front of me. “The materials are fragile.”

****

“I will be,” I promised.

****

“Good, let me know when you’re finished and enjoy you’re reading. I hope you get what you want out of these,” she said, then walked back to her desk and sat. She opened her book, looked at me a final time, then started reading again, leaving me to research in silence. I was glad for it.

****

“Let's see what we’ve got here,” I muttered, opening up the folder. Inside were several old yellowed newspaper pages pressed behind two thin sheets of plastic. I sorted through them, eyeing the obituaries until I found Maribelle and Waylon’s. It was tragically short.

****

On May 25th, 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Maye passed away at their home, surrounded by their friends. Mr. and Mrs. Maye were pillars of the Hope community and they will be mourned by us all. May they rest in heaven and be now with the Lord God.  
A service and burial will be held on May 29th, at 2:00 PM and Mr. Maye’s estate. They will be interred at their family graveyard there. Those of proper Christian faith may be in attendance, whether they be friends or strangers.

****

Excitement rushed through me. There it was. Where they were buried written down in the clearest way possible. Good luck for once. I took out my phone and snapped a picture of the obituary, then scanned over the rest of the paper. There was nothing else about them, but that was fine. I’d already gotten what I needed. I put the paper away, then opened up the box and withdrew a thick leather notebook.

****

When I opened it, I groaned out loud.

****

The pages of notes were pressed between plastic like the newspaper had been, but unlike the newspaper, the notes were almost unreadable. The writing was an elegant, looping cursive. The words barely had any space between them. I skimmed through the notebook and found that the elegance of the writing wasn’t consistent. It constantly devolved into something that resembled scribbling rather than words.

****

God fucking damnit.

****

I didn’t know what notes Maribelle wrote or which ones Waylon did, but I guessed that I was going to have to find out. I put my head in one of my hands, stared down at the notebook, and tried to decipher the almost impossible to read text.

****

****

_

****

**  
**

“Serenity,” Willow said. I looked up and saw them standing there, looking down at me. They set a copy of the school paper down on the table. “You talked about what we saw?”

****

Here we go. I straightened up in my chair. I’d prepared for this. Practiced what I was going to say to make sure that it all came outright. “Yeah, I did, but I left your name out. Even when I gave the interview, I didn’t mention your or Madame Grace at all. Just the basics. I’m sorry for not telling you,” I said.

****

“Why did you do it?”

****

“I wanted to know the name of the cop that spread the rumor that I was there. Mary, the author of that article, said she might be able to find him if I talked to her. So I did.”

****

Willow nodded. “Okay.”

****

“That’s it? You’re not mad?” I asked

****

Willow shook their head. “No, you were careful. There is nothing for me to be upset over.”

****

It was hard to believe that Willow was fine with it. I’d expected them to be at least a bit angry and to give me a minor tongue lashing, but I overestimated how Willow would feel. I frowned. How could I be so off base? I thought I had a decent idea of their personality, but that obviously wasn’t true. “Oh, well that’s good. Sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said, rubbing the back of my head.

****

“Mhm.”

****

Elise and Annabelle walked out from the stairwell, spotted us, then headed towards me and Willow. They paused at Willow’s side and Elise leaned over the table, jabbing her finger down at the paragraph Mary had written because of me. “You’re reading about yourself? That’s kind of egotistical,” Elise joked.

****

I rolled my eyes and gestured to the notebook in front of me. “No, I’m reading Maribelle and Waylon’s notes from Coastal State.”

****

“Anything useful?” Annabelle asked.

****

I made a so-so gesture. “Not really. I can barely read the fucking thing and what I can read makes me hate them.”

****

“Shocker.”

****

Elise pulled out a chair and sat down. “So you’ve been doing this all morning and you haven’t gotten anything good?”

****

“No, I found out where they’re buried, but I still don’t know how they died. The obituary didn’t say,” I said. I pulled out the newspaper from the folder and passed it around. Willow barely glanced at it before handing it back to me and letting me put it away.

****

“Did you check the vital statistics?” they asked.

****

I blinked in confusion. “Sorry?”

****

“The government keeps track of who lives and dies. They’ve been doing it for a while. So did you check them?” they asked again.

****

“Considering I didn’t even know what those were until then, no.”

****

“I’ll look then.”

****

“Okay, so if you’re reading notes, what are we supposed to be doing?” Annabelle asked.

****

“There are books about Coastal State you could go check out. Might be something in there,” I said.

****

“I don’t know how that’s going to help us.”

****

“Well, what is the nature of your project?” the woman from the front desk asked. She started to walk over again. “Your friend said he was just interested in them, but it sounds like you might have something more specific in mind?

****

“Who are you?” Willow asked.

****

The woman looked taken aback. “My name is Jeane Grace. I’m the university archivist.”

****

“I don’t think you can help us with what we need,” Elise said.

****

“Well, what is it?” Jeane pressed. “You’ve got me curious now. I didn’t think there was going to be this many of you.”

****

“We’re looking into the history of Coastal State, mental asylums and it’s relation to LGBT people. It’s for our club. I want to do a history lesson every so often about Hope and queer people. Makes it interesting.”

****

Jeane nodded slowly. Her eyes flicked up to the ceiling in thought. “If you’re doing that, then I think I have something pretty useful for you. We have a journal from a woman named Ruth who was interned at central state. I haven’t read it myself, but someone told me there were some implications from her writing that she was gay. Seems perfect for what you’re looking for right? Do you want me to get it for you?”

****

“That’d be great,” Annabelle said with a bright smile.

****

“No problem. I’m always happy to help.”

****

“Wait, you can take this,” I said, handing the folder with the newspaper back. “I’m done with it.”

****

She accepted it and tucked it under her arm. “Good, I’ll be back shortly,” she said, unlocking and walking back through the same heavy wooden door as before.

****

“That was a good save,” Elise said.

****

“It might be useful, but I’m a bit curious about it anyway,” Annabelle replied. “But seriously, what the fuck is the point of looking at history books about the asylum? We don’t get jack shit doing it. We’re supposed to find out if they’re alive, not familiarize ourselves with the fascinating ways they tortured people. We’re better off going over their notes.”

****

“That’s what I’m doing,” I protested. “I found out where they were buried. We needed that. Who knows what might be in the other books that could be useful. You’re not doing anything, so go get them.”

****

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Annabelle said.

****

I pushed the notebook over to her side of the table. “Fine, I’ll get them then and you can read through this. Have fun.”

****

Before I could get up, Jeane appeared back through the doorway, a small, delicate looking book in hand. She set it on the table. “Be extra careful with this. It’s very old and it didn’t come to us in great condition. It took a lot of work to get it to last this long."

****

“Thank you,” I said.

****

“No need to thank me,” Jeane said. She turned to walk away, but then hesitated and looked back. “Is there anything else I can do? More materials you might need? Questions I can answer?”

****

She was bored. There was no other reason she would care about what we were doing. I wondered how often she even got a chance to help with research or really do her job. GCU’s special collection library was paltry and uninteresting. Of all the places for an archivist to wind up, Hope had to be incredibly low on the list. I couldn’t help but feel bad for her.

****

“No, we don’t need your help. Leave us alone,” Willow said without looking up from their phone.

****

Jeane looked mildly offended but forced another smile anyway. “Glad I could help,” she said and walked back behind her desk. She tried to go back to reading, but her eyes kept flicking back up to us.

****

“We’re going to have to be quieter when we talk,” I whispered.

****

“It’s fine, she can hear,” Elise said. She cleared her throat, leaned over Ruth’s notebook, and started to read. “Doctor Maye insists that I am having delusions. He refuses to listen to a word I say. He and his wife are attempting to convince me what I know is true is a lie. They will not let me leave. They said that Mrs. Jacobs sent me away because she feared I was setting a dangerous and immoral example for her children. Doctor Maye agreed with her and tells me that I must stay until my treatment is complete.”

****

Elise looked up from the book. “Doctor Maye sounds like a lovely person,” she said

****

“Is there anything good in there or not?” Annabelle said, keeping her voice low.

****

Elise turned the page. “I don’t know. That was the first page.”

****

“Keep reading then,” Annabelle replied, narrowing their eyes at Maribelle and Waylon’s notes.

****

I stood up. “I’m getting those books. I’ll be back.”

****

“Okay,” Willow said. They still didn’t look up.

****

I left the special collections room and went downstairs to the main stacks. It took me a good ten minutes to find the titles that I was looking for. All of them were old, dusty books in sections that seemed like they were barely touched. I brought them back upstairs to the special collections room. As soon as I took my first step off the staircase, Willow's, Annabelle's, and Elise's heads jerked towards me.

****

“Your friends were very excited to find something,” Jeane said.

****

“Thanks.” I walked back to the table and sat back down. The three of them continued to look at me. Willow’s expression was neutral, but Elise looked excited and Annabelle looked a mix of thrilled and upset about whatever they found. “What is it?” I asked.

****

“The woman this notebook belonged to was not a woman,” Annabelle said. “They were a man. A man named Isiah.”

****

“What? No fucking way.”

****

“They seemed to have a pretty big grudge against Doctor Maye too. Both of them from what I’ve read,” Elise said. “Towards the end of the journal, they start to call Doctor Maye and his wife witches.” She tapped her fingers on the table. “Sound like someone we might know?”

****

“It’s him?” I asked.

****

“Who else would it be?” Annabelle asked.

****

My head spun. I was too tired for this. It felt like I was in a dream.“There’s no way.”

****

Elise paged through the notebook, then started to read again. “Doctor Maye refuses to call me by my proper name. He keeps calling me Ruth and says I have to accept my female nature to progress through my treatment. He’s wrong. I am not female at all. I never was, but he will not listen. No matter what I say. The man is the devil incarnate. He doesn’t care about any of the patients here. We’re locked up and subject to whatever he wants.”

****

She stopped, then flicked ahead a few pages.

****

“Mrs. Maye called me Isiah for the first time today. I thought it was a sign of things to come, but when I answered it, she told Doctor Maye and he took me for more “treatment.” It was torture. The water they put me in was so cold. I don’t understand how it could help anyone. I tried to get out, but the nurses held me down and told me it was good for me. I’m scared I might never leave. I think Mrs. Jacobs has forgotten about me and that she has found another negro to mind her children. She has not written to me once since I’ve entered this hellish place, and she does not respond to any of my letters. I don’t even know if they’re being sent out. I am trying hard to not lose faith, but mine is chipped away every day.”

****

She paged through to what looked like the very end.

****

“They’re witches. I see now. Both of them. They’re twisting us up, using us for evil things. They talk about it openly. They joke about it with one another. They don’t care. They’re monsters. I hate them.”

****

“That’s it?” I asked.

****

“Yeah, that’s the last page. He didn’t keep writing after that,” Elise said. She closed the notebook and cocked her head to the side. “You okay?”

****

The question made me realize how angry I was. White hot anger thrashed around inside of me. My hands were curled up into fists. I wanted to hit something. Maribelle and Waylon, alive or dead, were monsters. They tortured Isiah and kept him imprisoned. It was no wonder he wanted revenge on them and Hope. I would’ve too. I reached up and grabbed my necklaces, letting them sap away some of my rage. Now was not the time or place to be angry.

****

“What’s wrong with you?” Annabelle asked.

****

“I’m fucking pissed. They killed him for no reason. I cant-”

****

“Yeah, they did a lot of fucked up things back then. “t was kind of a thing.”

****

“It being a thing doesn’t make me feel better!” I snapped.

****

Annabelle gave me an unimpressed look. “Well get over yourself. History is full of this bullshit, you know that. It’s not any different because they were like you,” Annabelle said. “When we dig up their graves, you can piss on them. Maybe that’ll make you feel better.”

****

“Why are you being such a bitch? You jam a stick up your ass before you came?” I growled.

****

“I’m just telling you the truth. I like to be honest.”

****

“Fuck you.”

****

“Jeane is staring at us,” Willow said. “I think she wants us to be quiet.”

****

I glanced back. Jeane was half in half out of their chair, looking like she was about to rush over and kick us out. I didn’t know if it was because she thought Annabelle and I were going to hurt each other or if she was more worried about the books. I made a zipping gesture over my mouth. Getting kicked out would be a bad look, and I wasn’t going to let Annabelle get me going.

****

“It’s different when they’re like you. You know that,” I said.

****

Annabelle tapped a page of Maribelle and Waylon’s notes. “Doctor Maye here is talking all about how he kept a woman institutionalized because she cheated on her husband. They diagnosed her with hysteria and Doctor Maye said she didn’t know when that woman would be able to see the light of day again.”

****

I sunk back into my chair and crossed my arms. “So what? You’re not upset about that?”

****

“I’m upset, but I handle my emotions like an adult.”

****

“Oh really? That’s rich,” I said, rolling my eyes.

****

“Stop, both of you. Ya’ll are directing your anger to the wrong places. Let’s be pissed at Maribelle and Waylon, not each other, alright?” Elise asked.

****

“I can be pissed at more than one person at a time,” I replied. “Willow, did you find anything?” I asked, ending the conversation before Annabelle could jump back in.

****

“No,” they said, finally turning off their phone and putting it away. “I checked several records. There isn’t even any notation they died. It's likely the bodies were never seen by a coroner or an undertaker. Their friends must have done it.”

****

“You think they’re alive then?”

****

“Maybe. They were hiding something,” Willow said.

****

“Did Madame Grace tell you how that might be possible? These people are fucking ancient. They should’ve rotted away by now.”

****

“I can’t tell you.”

****

“Can’t or won’t?” Annabelle pushed.

****

“Both. If I tell you and Madame Grace finds out, she will kill me. I worry that if she knows that ya’ll know her secrets, she’ll kill ya’ll too.”

****

“She said that?” I asked alarmed. “She threatened to kill us?”

****

Willow shook their head. “No, but she did say she would take back her gifts. How would you take away knowledge other than death?”

****

“Erasing your memory?” Elise suggested.

****

“Why would she do that when killing us would be easier? If what you said about her is true, then she seems capable of murder. I don’t want to harm any of you. Or myself. So I cannot tell and I will not tell you,” Willow said.

****

The consequences for not following through on the detail weren’t something I thought about, but what Willow was saying made a disturbing amount of sense. Why would Madame Grace waste her time putting us back to normal when killing us would be easier? Why hadn’t I thought about that before I signed that fucking contract?

****

“I’m not worried about any of that,” Annabelle said. “She’s not going to kill us, because we’re going to fulfill our side of the bargain. We already have what we need to know thanks to Serenity. All of this shit-” she waved her hands over the table “- is extra.”

****

“You’re also assuming that killing us is easier, which I doubt is true Willow. If she kills us, she’s going to have to kill and hide all five of us without it being tied back to her, which has to be a ton of work. I don’t think we have to worry we’re going to be murdered,” Elise reasoned.

****

Willow looked unconvinced. I was too, but that didn’t matter. We just wouldn’t fail, like Annabelle said. Digging up a grave wasn’t too hard of a promise to make good on and I’d rather never find out what would happen if we fail than speculate and end up being wrong.

****

“Is it safe to be around her? I don’t want you to get hurt,” I said.

****

“I am fine. I do not think Madame Grace wants to hurt me,” Willow said.

****

“You just think that? So you’re not sure?”

****

“No.”

****

A choked off laugh flew out of Elise. “Well, at least they’re honest.”

****

Willow tugged at their hair. “I will be fine.”

****

“You’re not going to stop going to her, are you?” I asked.

****

“No, I am not. Would you return your gift to her?” they countered.

****

I flexed my shoulders. The burning was still there, but it had settled into the background of my senses. I hoped that meant that it was getting better and not because I was too tired to pay notice. “What do you think I’d do?”

****

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

****

“No, I wouldn’t,” I admitted.

****

“Okay.” They looked around the table. “Are we done here? I am supposed to talk to Madame Grace in thirty minutes,” Willow said,

****

“Already?” I asked surprised.

****

“I am supposed to go every other day from now on,” Willow said.

****

Every other day. It was an enormous amount of time to be spending with Madame Grace in her smoky little shop, but there was nothing I could do. I had to trust Willow to know what they were doing and keep themselves safe. I wanted to do more and talk her out of the full affair, but I’d already lost that argument too.

****

“Promise me you’ll be safe.”

****

“I already told you I will,” Willow said.

****

“Again? Please?” I asked.

****

“Jesus, they’re going to be fine. If you keep stressing like this, you’re going to give yourself an aneurysm,” Annabelle sniped.

****

“Shut the fuck up Annabelle, I wasn’t talking to you!” I hissed.

****

“I’m pointing out what we’re all thinking,” she said, inspecting her nails.

****

“You’re antagonizing me,” I accused.

****

“I’m antagonizing you? How do you figure that?” she asked. She met and held my eyes for a second before I looked back to Willow. I wasn’t going to do this. I wasn’t going to argue with her. She was being obnoxious on purpose and I was too fucking tired to argue. She could win this round.

****

“Willow?” I repeated.

****

“Yes, I’ll be safe.”

****

It eased a bit of my anxiety away. “Okay. Thank you.”

****

Willow stood up and grabbed their bag. “Let me know what our plan is when we figure it out and if there are other things I can do.” They got up from their chair, then walked back to the stairwell and vanished down it.

****

“Soo are we done or not?” Elise asked me.

****

I picked up Isiah’s journal and went back to the first page. “I don’t care what ya’ll do, but I’m going to read.”  


****


	9. Stones Unturned - 1.9

“Are you seriously still mad at Annabelle?” Darius asked me.

I looked up from my laptop. Darius was standing in front of me, two glasses of wine in his hand. I blinked and looked to my left to where my glass should’ve been, only to find it gone. When had Darius gotten up and refilled it? I wasn’t that drunk and even though I was exhausted, I should’ve noticed something like that. I shook my head and lightly slapped my face, trying to wake myself up.

“Yeah, I am. She was a bitch earlier,” I said as I shut my laptop.

Darius offered me my glass and I took it from his hand and took a drink. Darius insisted that this wine was a really good one, but it tasted the same as all the other wine we had. Maybe you had to be a wine snob to tell the difference.

He took a drink. “Her sitting there with you was her form of apology you know. She feels bad about what she said.”

“If she felt bad, then why doesn’t she tell me herself?”

“Do I really have to answer that?”

I narrowed my eyes. “You barely know her and if she didn’t apologize to me, she sure as hell didn’t say she was sorry to you, so how the fuck do you know how she’s feeling?”

“Because she’s brooding in her room and won’t talk to me, which means she’s upset about something. Not angry. If she was angry she’d be in here and yelling and you know that.”

“She’s brooding,” I repeated, skepticism dripping from my every word.

Darius rolled his eyes. “She has feelings you know. Go tell her you forgive her so she’ll come out.”

“I don’t forgive her though.”

Darius sighed. “You’re really not going to budge on this?”

“Hell no,” I said. I lifted my arms to make an X with them over my chest, then grimaced in pain. “My shoulders hurt too. I don’t want to move.”

“Want me to rub them?” Darius asked.

There was no way I heard that right. “What?”

“I can rub your shoulders if you want, it’s not a big deal. You seem like you could use it.” Darius took a step closer. “You want me to?”

My throat was suddenly dry and I swallowed another mouthful of wine. I was glad I could blame my blush on the wine. I was also glad that Darius was handing me a reason why he should touch me on a silver platter. Even as tired as I was, I knew now to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Sure. If you want. I don’t care,” I said.

Darius set his wine down on the table and sat on the couch beside me. “Turn around,” he ordered. His voice left no room for argument, but it wasn’t as harsh or demanding as Annabelle got. Something warm and hot bloomed in my stomach as I obeyed. I tried not to think about what that meant.

 _He just has a nice voice. That’s why you like to listen to it,_ I thought.

“Do you want me to- like, you know…” I set my glass on the floor, then toyed with the hem of my shirt while I looked back at him.

“If you want to take it off, I don’t care. It’s up to you,” he said. He sounded casual, like me asking to take my shirt off wasn’t a big deal.

“If I do, you can only look at my back. Nothing else.”

“Works for me now. Arms up,” he said.

“It hurts to do that,” I complained.

Darius grabbed my wrists, then guided them up and above my shoulders. The motion aggravated my shoulders and I hissed in pain, but Darius didn’t make me hold them there long. In one smooth motion, he tugged my shirt off and set it in my lap.

“You really don’t wear bras huh?” he said.

I dropped my arms and covered my chest. “There’s no point. There's nothing there.”

“There is thought. You know your nipples totally poke through your thinner shirts right?”

“They don’t.”

“They so do.”

“What? Have you been staring at me-”

His hands landed on my shoulders and he started to knead. A fresh wave of pain spread out through me. I wanted to pull away, but I could feel my shoulders unknotting as Darius pressed his fingers into them. Slowly, it started to feel good, and the mix of too sharp pain and pleasure was making it very, very hard to think.

“This fucking hurts,” I said. I felt stupid right after. Why was I even opening my mouth?

“Yeah, you’re tense as fuck. Of course it hurts.”

“I have anxiety.”

“Oh fuck you have issues, that’s hot,” he joked. Or I was pretty sure it was a joke. My body didn’t respond like it was a joke though. My skin prickled with heat and tiny little bolts of arousal settled inside of me. My blush was starting to creep down my neck and I’d never been happier in my life that I wasn’t facing him.

“Shut up and rub.”

“Of course.”

Darius worked my shoulders until the sharp, burning pain receded and replaced itself with a dull distant ache. It was hard to believe that Darius hadn’t just done magic to me. I struggled to not slump against him, knowing that if I did, he wouldn’t have a good angle to keep massaging the pain out of my shoulders.

“So, how are we feeling about making up with Annabelle now? Better?” Darius asked.

“Oh you manipulative bastard,” I mumbled. “This was a setup.”

“You’re more relaxed now, I think we can have a better conversation about it now.”

As much as it pained me to admit it, he was right. Annabelle had been mean in the library, but it wasn’t to hurt my feelings. If Annabelle wanted to do that, she would’ve gone a different route entirely. I ran a hand through my hair and groaned.

“If she says she was a bitch, then I’ll forgive her,” I said.

“Great, I’ll go tell her that now.” Darius got off the couch, then was out the door in a few quick steps. I stared after him.

“I didn’t mean now when I said that!” I shouted after him.

He didn’t reply.

I started to put my shirt back on, then froze. Had Darius seen me when he left? He hadn’t looked back at me as far as I remembered, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t caught a glimpse. I put my shirt back on, then grabbed my wine and swallowed the rest, trying to quash the anxiety that came with the thought of him seeing me. How had things gone like this? I was supposed to have spent tonight doing homework, not getting a massage and taking off my shirt. What the hell was I doing?

Darius walked back into the room, Annabelle in tow, then gestured to her like he was presenting a prize on a gameshow. “Here she is. Annabelle in the flesh.”

“What the fuck is this about?”

“You didn’t tell her?” I asked.

“I was getting to that.” Darius cleared his throat. “Annabelle, Serenity wants to admit that you were being a bitch in the library earlier, and in return, she’ll forgive you. Sound good?”

“You want me to admit _I_ was being a bitch?” Annabelle asked.

“You were being one,” I replied.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I was a bitch. Are you happy now?”

“It doesn’t sound like-”

“Great! Glad that’s over with, now we can kiss and make up,” Darius said cheerfully.

I wished Darius hadn’t said that. It was too easy to picture myself kissing Annabelle. Too easy to imagine doing more than that. Annabelle was attractive, it was something I’d always been aware of, but acknowledging that should’ve been akin to acknowledging that the sky was blue or water was wet. It wasn’t supposed to be something I fixated on, but now all I could think about was Annabelle’s haughty, holier-than-thou face looking down at me with hunger.

Fuck. Something was really wrong with me.

"Are we just going to stand here now? Is that what we're doing?" Annabelle barked.

“Holy shit ya'll are both so uptight. How do you live like this?” Darius asked. “It’s a crime. You’re going to die 20 years too early from all the stress.” He walked back over to the couch and sat down, then patted the space next to him. “You’re getting a massage too. Come here.”

“A massage too? I’m sorry?” She looked back and forth between me and Darius. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”

Darius stood up from the couch and grabbed Annabelle’s wrist, then gave her a light tug. She followed him and sat. I could barely believe it.

“You’re thinking way too hard about this right now,” Darius said.

“Ya’ll are drunk,” Annabelle accused.

“We’re tipsy, so big difference. Now put your legs up and turn around so I can rub your shoulders already.”

Annabelle rolled her eyes again, but she went with it and sat crossed-legged on the couch. Her eyes burned into me. I looked away and at the door.

Darius and Annabelle went quiet. I could only see the tiniest bit of motion out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t risk a full look back. If Annabelle or Darius saw me watching, I’d never hear the end of it. Maybe I could go back to doing homework and ignore them like that.

“That’s nice,” Annabelle sighed, her voice breathy and light.

I chanced a look.

Annabelle had her eyes shut and had none of the same reservations about sinking back into Darius's chest as I did. Her familiar scowl was gone, replaced by a look of bliss. I glanced at her lips. They were slightly party and let out tiny pleased noises when Darius dug his fingers into a particularly good spot. Watching her made me feel like a voyeur. I was intruding in on something that I had no right to see.

“Hey Annabelle, if you take off your shirt this is easier,” Darius said. He shot me a wink over her shoulder. I looked up at the ceiling.

“Smooth way to ask for that,” Annabelle drawled.

“I’m aware. You can take your bra too if you want. Did you Serenity doesn’t even wear one?”

“Darius shut the fuck up!” I almost shouted.

Annabelle's eyes slit open, she eyed me like a lazy cat, then glanced back at Darius. “Only my shirt.”

“I’m leaving,” I said, starting to get up.

“You’re not,” Annabelle replied. “Stay here. I want to run a plan by you.”

. “We can do that later.”

“We can do it now too. We may as well. Now fucking _sit_ she ordered.

For some stupid reason, I sat back down and fixed my eyes on the ceiling. “Fine. Get to it.”

“One second. Darius, my shirt?”

So this was really happening. Alright. I kept my eyes trained on the ceiling and tried to ignore the noises and movement of Annabelle literally taking off her clothes in front of me. Fuck, since when was she the type to do something like this? When Elise said she didn’t care if people saw her, I was sure she meant it, but everything Annabelle did was so layered with meaning and bullshit fucking subtext that I never really knew what her intentions were. Was she trying to fuck with me right now?

“You can look at me you know. I don’t care,” Annabelle said.

“Have you considered I don’t want to?” I asked.

“What? You think I’m ugly?”

“No! What the fuck- you- you’re both fucking with me,” I accused. They had to be.

“I’m not laughing, am I?” Darius asked. “Neither is Annabelle.”

“This is ridiculous. Are you two fucking or something?” I asked, taking a random shot in the dark.

“Maybe we are,” Darius said.

What the _fuck_? There was no way I heard that. No fucking way.

“I found out where Maribelle and Waylon’s estate is. Apparently, her granddaughter lives there. It’s Hope’s only other plantation mansion. It’s on the outskirts of Hope. Where highway 442 starts,” Annabelle said. “Property is fucking massive. At least that what it looks like on the map. It’ll be easy to not get seen. Plus, that grandaughter? She’s old as dirt now and has a Ph.D. in psychology, lives alone, and just so happens to be attending a conference that goes from 3:30 to 8:30 at night. We’re going to go dip up those graves then, and get out before she even sees us there.”

Most of her words went in one ear and out the other. I was too focused on what Darius said and that Annabelle hadn’t said anything about it. Maybe. What kind of response was maybe? What the fuck was I supposed to take away from that? Was he- were they actually sleeping with one another? Was that what they were doing when they were alone in Annabelle’s room?

“Serenity, pay attention,” Annabelle ordered.

“I am.”

“Then what did I just say.”

“You know where the estate is and we’re going to go dig up the graves Monday,” I recited.

“Can you look at me when you say that?”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

She was making this so much harder than it needed to be. Why couldn’t I stare at the ceiling and not think about how weird and stupid this was all was? Why did she have to take away the privilege? I- no. No. No, fuck this. I wasn’t going to let Annabelle screw with my head like this. I wasn’t going to play the part of an embarrassed teenager for her entertainment. I’d play whatever stupid game she wanted to play. Riding high off my new found confidence, I looked at Annabelle.

I regretted it immediately.

Annabelle was practically on Darius's lap without her shirt on. Her bra hung loosely off her body too. Darius had his arms around her waist and his chin hooked over her shoulder. He was looking right at me with…interest? Hunger? I couldn’t decipher it, but it made me flush with heat. It should’ve been all the incentive I needed to look back at the ceiling, but I couldn’t help myself. I looked down and drank in the sight of Annabelle without her shirt.

It was unfair how good she looked, but I guess that was the benefit of being cis. Unlike the conical mosquito bites I called my boobs, Annabelle actually had tits to speak of. They weren’t very big, but they looked soft and round and I wondered what I’d have to do for Madame Grace to even get half of what she had.

“What do you think Serenity?” Darius asked, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“I think this is really weird.”

“What about my plan is weird?” Annabelle asked.

“I’m not talking about your plan.”

Annabelle opened her eyes again and looked into my own. “We’re all friends here right?”

“Exactly, you’re overthinking it.”

I’d heard a lot of absurd bullshit in my life, but that line took the cake. There was no world in all of the existence where I was overthinking this. Annabelle had never shown the slightest bit of interest in me. I didn’t even know why she was my friend. She was way too beautiful to be into someone like me too. Darius as well. I was not overthinking anything.

“I haven't even known you for a month," I said.

“And? I’m giving you a massage, not going down on you,” he purred. He cocked his head to the side and gave me a look that read a lot like lust to me. “Unless you want me to of course.”

I was at a loss for words. I glanced at the door again, but I knew I wasn’t going to leave. Instead, I fixed my eyes to the ceiling again, where it was safe and I didn’t have to look at Annabelle’s breasts or think about what the fuck was going on.

“We should check out the house before we go. To make sure it’s safe,” I said, trying to get back on topic.

Annabelle kicked her legs up onto my lap. “Yeah, we’re going to,” she replied.

“How did talking to Arif go?” I asked, desperate to find another topic so I didn’t have to think about the weight of Annabelle’s legs pinning me down or the way Darius was looking at me.

“Fine. We talked. He doesn’t hate me,” Darius said.

“Did he ask about us at all?” I asked.

“Would it matter if he did?”

“Yes. He knows things no one else does, obviously, it matter,” Annabelle replied. Her voice lacked her usual bite.

“Not really no. He really doesn’t want to know what we’re doing. He kept looking at the jewelry Madame Grace gave me, but he didn’t ask about it. Pretty sure he’s just scared.”

“Aren’t you?” I asked.

“Nah. We’ll get this done and that will be that."

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“You’re never scared. You picked up Isiah’s note by yourself and didn’t break down and now you’re telling me you’re not worried about digging up graves of people who may or may not still be alive? And you know, could be fucking witches?”

Darius smiled. “I’m the master of my own emotions.”

Annabelle laughed. “Bullshit.”

“What’s your theory, Queen Annabelle? How am I so perfect” he mocked.

She reached a hand back and swatted at his head. Darius laughed. Annabelle did too and then they were laughing together. I didn’t know what was so funny. There had to be an inside joke I was missing. The more I thought about it, the less surprised I was they were sleeping together. They were so similar, so beautiful in their own ways, while I was…

Well, I was me.

Annabelle and Darius stopped laughing, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was intruding on another private moment of theirs. One that would’ve been better without me. If Annabelle’s legs weren’t on my lap, I would’ve gotten up and left them to talk to one another like they obviously wanted to do.

“You’re doing it again. Annabelle, isn’t she doing it?” Darius said.

“She is.”

“What?” I asked harsher than I intended. “What am I doing? Please enlighten me.”

“You’re overthinking it.”

That was enough. I shoved Annabelle’s legs off of me and stood up, then grabbed my computer and backpack from off the floor. “I’ll go overthink somewhere else then. You two have fun,” I said.

“What the fuck? Come back you dumbass,” Annabelle replied.

I ignored her as I walked out of the room and to the one Darius and I shared, then shut the door behind me. They could talk to and have sex or whatever other bullshit they were doing without me.

I didn’t need to watch them enjoy what I wanted but couldn’t ever have.

_

The rest of the week passed in the most mundane way possible and before I knew it, it was Friday. I wasn’t able to put Madame Grace or Isiah’s letter out of my head completely, but they became a backdrop rather than my focus. I went to feed crows with Willow, studied with Elise, did my homework, and hung out with Annabelle and Darius. All of it should’ve made me feel happy and normal, but instead, it made me anxious and bored. No matter how terrifying Madame Grace, magic, and the letter were, they were exciting. They made me important.

Without those things to occupy me, I was left to feel unimportant and to dwell over my other problems. My brain decided that Annabelle and Darius were the most pressing one. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I termed “the incident;" when Annabelle and Darius had come together and collectively decided to fuck with my head by flirting with me. Neither of them had brought the incident up again, and both of them weren’t acting any differently as far as I could tell, but it still bothered me.

Ever since then, I couldn’t stop looking at Darius and Annabelle and noticing all the things I liked about them. All the ways I hadn't minded their flirting. I just didn't know what it meant or what they wanted or how I was supposed to respond. I had no idea how I fit into whatever _thing_ they had going on. 

All I knew is that, whatever they had was what I’d always wanted. The sex or romance or whatever the hell wasn’t even a requirement. I'd settle for a good friend like they seemed to be becoming, which made no sense, because I had friends in the form of Elise and Willow. Neither of them represented the ideal friendship I imagined in my head, but no one ever would. That’s not how friends worked. The ideal was a fantasy. It didn’t exist and it never would.

That didn’t stop me from wanting to as close to it as I could.

Or maybe I was lying to myself and I didn't really want a friend at all.

Maybe I didn't want to think about it anymore.

When my last class ended, I went to the quad and sat under my favorite tree, and started to smoke. It caught me the same dirty looks and glares as before, but I was used to them. They were almost comforting. There was no great mystery about why Cletus and his three dipshit friends were leering at me when they walked by. I didn’t have to play any guessing game and try to read mixed signals. I could just sit and watch the reality I was all too familiar with play out before me and remind me why I didn’t chase fantasies. It was a good reminder to have before I went to Annabelle’s meeting in the library and saw her and Darius again.

Halfway through my cigarette, I spotted a familiar face heading right towards me. Mary walked with a spring in her step uncaring of the world around her. She cut off everyone who was close to her size and dodged around the people she wasn’t until she stopped in front of me.

“I got your message and have your answer,” she announced.

“Who was it? Who did it?” I asked, excitement racing through me.

She pulled out her phone and tapped away. “I just texted you a short write up, but in short, your rat is a man named Erin Hunter Black. He’s been an officer in Hope for a long time. When I mentioned your name, he looked annoyed. You know him?” she asked.

“What’s he look like?” I asked.

She turned her phone around and showed me a picture of a tan blading man in his late 40’s. He looked familiar, but that was less because I’d seen him before and more because he looked like a hundred other cranky middle-aged men.

“I don’t think I know him, so I don’t know why he hates me,” I said. “But how’d you find out it was him?”

Mary put her phone back in her pocket. “He and his partner were the first officers to respond to your call. When I tracked them down and asked what happened, Black was more than happy to tell me. He used your name liberally when he did.”

“Did he say what he hates me?”

“I asked. He said that you were a delinquent and he was tired of all the times you ‘wasted department time and money with stupid bullshit.’

Figures. It was as thin and stupid of a reason as I thought it’d be. I wondered how common that opinion of me was among the police. I’d never received a single ounce of sympathy from any officer who ever talked to me, so I figured it had to be the norm. Not that I could do anything about that. Even now, when I had his name, I didn’t know what to do with it. 

I was scared the real answer was nothing.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” I said.

“No problem. Let me know if there is anything else interesting you run across. I’m always looking for stories.” Her eyes flicked down to my still burning cigarette. “Also, I heard someone say they were going to call the campus police because you’re smoking here. You might want to leave.”

I stubbed out my cigarette on the ground and groaned. I couldn’t have anything nice. “Thanks,” I said, rising to my feet.

“Walk with me?” she asked.

“Sure, but where are we going?”

“Away from there,” she answered and started towards the street. I followed. “Did you read my article by the way?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I threw my stubbed out a cigarette into a trashcan we passed.

“What’d you think of it?”

“It was good,” I replied.

“Do you think Mr. Day and those homeless people were murdered?” she asked, glancing back at me. She looked serious.

“It kind of seems like it, but I don’t really know,” I said. I tried to not give anything more away. I didn’t need to drag Mary into the mess my life was becoming

“I think someone killed them,” Mary said. We crossed the street and Elise led me to a bench that was next to the student center. “This is going to sound weird, but have you ever got the sense that there was something off about Hope? Something wrong with it?”

I almost gritted my teeth. I didn't like how closely she was flirting with the truth. “Yeah, I think everyone who lives here has.”

“More than the usual small town bullshit thought. Something's _off_. It’s-” Mary’s eyes flicked down to my necklaces. She paused. “Where’d you get those from?” she asked.

“What? My necklaces?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Dunno.”

“There from Madame Grace, aren’t they?” she asked.

Why the fuck did she ask if she already knew the answer?

“Maybe? My friend gave them to me, I don’t know where she got them from,” I lied.

Mary nodded slowly. “Interesting.”

Something told me that she didn’t believe me.

“Anyway, like I was saying, there is something weird going on in Hope. I’d always suspected it, but I think all these deaths have confirmed it for me. Someone is pulling strings here and I don’t know why.”

“Mhm.”

Mary waited in silence for me to keep talking, but I didn’t budge. It was better to shut up and play stupid. Less chance of slipping up that way. The less she knew about what was going on in Hope, the better. If I told her anything, she’d dive in headfirst. I didn’t want to be responsible for getting her hurt or any of the other millions of consequences that having her in the know could cause.

“Can I bum a cigarette?” she asked.

“You smoke?” I asked. I withdrew a cigarette from my pack and handing it to her. I only had one left now. I was going to need to buy more. Or not. This could be the last one if I wanted it to be. Willow would be happy if it was. My body would be too.

“Sort of,” Mary said. She pulled a lighter out of her pocket and took a drag. “Usually I go for cigars.”

“Seriously?”

“What? You think cigarettes are better?”

“No, I didn’t think you’d be into cigars though.”

“I’m full of unexpected twists,” she said. She took another drag, then got up off the bench. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but she stopped short of vocalizing it. “I’ll see you later. Remember, let me know if there’s anything weird,” she said before she walked away and down the street.

I pulled my last cigarette out and lit it, then stood up and started to head downtown to the little smoke shop there.

One more pack wasn’t going to kill me.

_

I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for Annabelle’s ploy.

When she told everyone she was hosting an important meeting in the library, I thought we were going to go over our plan for the Maye Estate next Monday. Our plan wasn’t complicated, and Darius and Annabelle still needed to go watch the house to make sure it really was empty, but I still thought it would’ve been good to go over again. I quickly realized that wasn’t what was happening when Arif strolled into the room and took a seat at the table with the rest of us.

As soon as he arrived, Annabelle shut the door, then started to complain about the university not approving our club. Annabelle went over all the rejections for rooms she’d gotten back, and informed us that every single professor she asked refused to be our sponsor. She also made it as clear as she possibly could that none of this was her fault and that the university was fucking her over. I thought that bit was obvious, but I figured Annabelle was frustrated. I was starting to get frustrated too. Emails from the university were piling up for all of us, reminding us that if we had to attend the freshmen club once a week if we weren’t otherwise part of a club.

Annabelle told us that we were going to ignore those emails out of protest. I was pretty sure everyone was already doing that.

It didn’t take long for Annabelle to start beating the ground the dead horse used to lay on, and at that point, I zoned out. I wanted to do something. Monday couldn’t have come soon enough. I wanted to find out what was happening, wanted to reclaim that lovely rush of adrenaline, wanted to feel like I was doing something important again.

“Serenity!” Annabelle barked, jolting me back to awareness. “Are you even paying attention?”

“No, I’m not. I know all of this already,” I said.

Annabelle crossed her arms. “So what do you think about my solution then?”

“Solution for what?”

“Making the club,” Willow said.

I had no idea what solution she was talking about, but I knew it wasn’t going to work. “If it gets us the room and the sponsor, then great, but until that happens we’re dead in the water and you know that.”

“Exactly. You can’t do anything else if you don’t have one yet,” Elise chimed in.

“We’re stuck,” Willow observed.

“I have an idea,” Darius said.

“Oh god, please tell me it’s a normal one,” Arif replied.

“All my ideas are normal.”

“Bullshit.”

“Out with it,” Annabelle ordered. “What’s your idea?”

“Alright, well Serenity’s little excursion into the cemetery got her in the paper, so what if we tried to sell this to the paper too? Public shaming is a decent tactic.”

“Because…” I trailed off. Would Mary be interested in something like this? It satisfied her criteria of making the school look bad, but we didn’t have much more than suspicions to run off of, which I was worried would scare her off.

“We can’t prove it,” Arif said, speaking my thoughts aloud. “They’re going to ask you for proof and if all you have is speculation, they’re not going to care. If what you were saying about the last club is true, then the university has been here before and they’re being careful now. You’re going to have to catch them out on a lie.”

“So what, we just keep doing what’s not working?” Annabelle asked.

“Personally, I don’t see why we don’t suck it up and go to the stupid first year club. It doesn’t sound that bad,” Arif said.

“Maybe for you,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Why don’t we request a meeting with President Lee and demand he help?” Willow asked. “We can force his hand. If they are being careful, then they will have to find a good reason to reject us. It will show that we are not giving up.”

Annabelle nodded. “I like it. Maybe we can make him squirm. I’ll send out an email.” She looked over the rest of us. “All of you do the same.”

“Yes ma’am,” Darius intoned.

“Are we done then?” Elise asked.

“What? You have somewhere to be?” Annabelle asked.

“Yup! I have a date tonight,” she said. She stood up to show off her outfit. It was a short black dress that showed off plenty of skin. I’d thought she was overdressed when she came in, but at least now I understood why.”

“With who?” Annabelle said.

“A guy I met in my math class. He’s cute. We’re going to get dinner and drinks.”

“You’re not 21,” Arif said.

“He is though,” Elise replied.

“Congratulations,” Annabelle said. I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic.

“In light of our failures today, I suggest we bar hop and drink away our sorrows. It’s a time-honored tradition,” Darius said.

Annabelle wrinkled her nose in disgust. “No, the college bars are awful. No one wants to go to them.”

“If no one wanted to go, then why are they full?” Willow asked.

“Exactly! I have to confirm that myself!” Darius said.

“I’m going to talk to Madame Grace, so I’m not coming either,” Willow said.

“Yeah, I’m out too,” Arif said. “If that’s what ya’ll want to do that’s fine, but I don’t want to drink. It tastes awful.”

Darius pouted. “You won’t even come with us to make sure the three of us don’t embarrass ourselves?”

“Who said I was going?” I asked. “If we want to go get drunk, we can go do that at Annabelle’s house, like you’ve been doing for the past week. We don’t have to waste money on overpriced drinks and get a headache from the music.”

“You’re all so lame, don’t you want to do something that isn’t sitting around? Come on Serenity, I know you’re bored.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t my idea of fixing that.”

“There we go. I win,” Annabelle declared triumphantly.

“Serenity, I know you want to. We can do something else after. If you want. I’ll even pay for your drinks,” Darius said. He gave me his best puppy dog eyes and then stuck out his lips in an exaggerated pout. It was the goofiest he’d ever looked. I laughed.

“You’re paying?” I asked.

“I am a man of my word.”

Going wasn’t a good idea. There was a reason I never attempted to bar hop before, but with Darius and Annabelle by my side, I’d be safe. I wouldn’t have to worry about people being assholes either. Annabelle would shut it down if it came to that.

Maybe this could be fun.

Darius pumped a fist in victory, then turned to Annabelle. “Annabelle? You going to come? If you don’t, Serenity and I will go alone.”

It was the perfect bait. Annabelle wouldn’t be able to resist. She threw her bag over her shoulder and glared at Darius. “You’re paying for me too then.”

“Deal.”

_

Annabelle, Darius, and I climbed out of the taxi and onto the street. For once, I felt normal standing next to them, because for once they were more attention grabbing than me. Annabelle was wearing a poofy sparkly red dress that glimmered in the street lights, a small purse, and a massive pair of heels that made her as tall as Darius. Darius was wearing a stark white three piece suit, a pair of expensive shoes that he claimed were alligator leather, and had done some light makeup to emphasize his best features. It looked like they’d dressed for the opera instead of bar hopping in a shitty college town.

“You should’ve let me do your makeup and dress you. You would’ve looked good,” Annabelle said for the hundredth time that night.

“I’m sorry I actually dressed for the venue,” I replied. I didn’t mention that I’d been tempted to, but I knew Annabelle would dress me up like she was, and I didn’t feel safe walking around like that around drunk college students, especially in Hope where everyone knew me. Even if it had felt safe, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to let her do it. It was just easier to present as masculinely and it wasn’t like I hated doing it either.

“Jeans and a hoodie are dressing for the venue?” Darius asked.

“Yeah, if you take a look around, I’m the normal one.”

Darius looked around the street and smiled. Annabelle did the same next to him. The two of them were peacocks, showing off their feathers and relishing in all of the attention it got them.

“Normal is a good codeword for bad taste, we-” he said, wrapping an arm around Annabelle’s shoulder, “-have excellent taste.”

“Agreed,” Annabelle said. “Now where to?”

“Just pick one, they all look the same to me,” Darius said. “You’re sure they’re not going to card us?” he turning to me.

“Doesn’t matter,” Annabelle said. She dug around in her purse and withdrew a license and waved it around in the air.“I have one of my sister’s old ones. If some bullshit comes up, we’re covered.”

“Wait, if you had that all along, why the fuck did I steal it last time?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t have it then. I found this the other day. Bailey was trying to throw it away without cutting it up first.”

“You dug that out of the trash?” Darius asked.

“Yes. I did and you’re going to get alcohol because of me, so don't’ give me shit,” Annabelle replied. “Now follow me, we’re getting drunk now.” She marched forward, her heels clicking on the pavement as she led Darius and me into the first bar of the night.

It was packed inside. Memorabilia from GCU’s irrelevant sports teams covered the walls, TV’s mounted high on the wall played an assortment of sports, and loud music blared from hidden speakers. The bar counter was slammed with people, creating a wall of bodies that separated us from the bartenders, but that didn’t stop Annabelle and Darius from fighting their way forward and claiming a spot at the counter with well placed taps on the shoulder and looks that could kill. I trailed behind them, all too happy that I wasn’t the one telling people to move.

Darius flagged down a bartender, leaned over the bar, and shouted something in his ear. The bartender nodded, then started to make our drinks. He didn’t ask for IDs.

Annabelle gave Darius a smug, victorious look.

A few minutes later, the bartender returned to us and set three shots glasses on the counter along with three colorful, fruity smelling drinks in plastic cups. Darius shoved some crumpled up bills into the bartender’s hand, then grabbed his shot and tossed it back. He picked up the other then pushed it into my hands with a smile. His hand lingered on mine longer than usual before he pulled away.

I tossed back the shot, then chased it with the fruity smelling drinks. Sans taking another shot, it might’ve been the worst chaser imaginable. It was way stronger than it should’ve been and tasted more like nail polish remover than fruit. I glared at Darius.

“This fucking sucks!” I shouted.

He knocked back his drink and rolled his eyes. “Fuck you, it’s good!”

Annabelle downed her own drink and gagged. She reached into her purse, came out with a napkin, then dabbed her mouth to avoid messing up her lipstick. “No, it’s fucking terrible! I’m picking drinks next time!”

“Next bar?” Darius asked.

Annabelle responded by grabbing both of our arms and pulling us away from the counter. Our space was filled up immediately. We pushed our way back outside and onto the street.

“The next place better have better drinks,” Annabelle said.

“It won’t, you know it won’t,” I replied.

“You’re such a pessimist. I enjoyed that place,” Darius said. “I’m sure the next one will be better.”

The next one wasn’t better.

Neither was the one after that.

After the third though, I started to enjoy myself. Even though every bar was the same— packed full of people, serving shitty drinks, and playing bad music— it was hard to not have fun listening to Annabelle and Darius running commentary on how shitty the bars and the people in them were. It probably helped that I was rapidly becoming very, very drunk. I was letting Annabelle and Darius touch me more, flirting back whenever they shot the odd comment my way, and not thinking about any of the problems and bullshit that had popped up in the last week.

I was doing my best to take Darius’s advice. I was not going to overthink this.

We stumbled out of our fifth or maybe sixth bar of the night. I wasn’t really keeping track anymore. I was just following wherever Darius and Annabelle led me, all too happy to let them take the lead.

“Where to?” Annabelle asked.

“We-”

Darius was cut off by a cacophony of shouts up the street. I looked and saw a girl bracing herself on the rim of a large potted plant as she vomited into it. Her friend patter her back and held back her hair. Watching her vomit made my stomach roll with sympathy. I covered my mouth with my hand.

“Maybe we’ve had enough?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’re not fucking doing that. Fuck that,” Annabelle said.

“It’s too early to go back. I still want to do stuff,” Darius said.

“What stuff?” I asked.

“The not boring kind.”

I laughed again. “Umm okay, we could go somewhere?”

A light went off in Dariu’s eyes. “Serenity, take us to the graveyard with that tree!”

“The graveyard?” Annabelle asked.

“Yeah! You know, the one she and Willow went to? Where they lynched people?”

Annabelle seemed dumbfounded. “Why the fuck would you want to see that?”

“I want to see where this all began. Pay respects to the people there,” Darius replied.

Was he being serious? He seemed like he was being serious. He was also drunk though, which had to put a dent in his credibility, at least a bit right? It seemed like it should. I started to ask if he really wanted to go when he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into his chest. His breath reeked with booze, but that was at the back of his mind considering how close we were. His lips were just a bit apart from mine. If I leaned forward a bit more than maybe-

“Take us?” Darius asked again, breaking me out of my stupor.

“We really shouldn’t,” I said.

“There are three of us, it’ll be fine,” Darius said. He looked past me and at Annabelle. “You in?”

"Sure. Why not?" she replied.

Darius smiled, then brought his lips right next to my ear. “Please Serenity?” he whispered.

I would’ve liked to say that I was strong. That I convinced my friends that what they wanted to do was reckless and stupid and we all went home to drink plenty of water and felt great the next day.

That was not what I did.

Five minutes later, we’d left downtown behind us and had mare our way to the south part of downtown. Darius and Annabelle had taken up position on either side of me with their arms looped around my shoulders, sandwiching me between them, as if they expected me to trip and fall on my face at any moment. I didn’t push them away though. The contact was nice. It also helped me keep moving forward. The streets were dark due to the lack of streetlights, and the ramshackle buildings around us felt more sinister in the dark. We passed a few homeless people sitting down on the curb or lying on benches, but none of them paid us any mind.

“This is really the right way?” Darius asked.

“Yeah, it is. I remember,” I replied.

“Got it.”

I looked around the street again, then glanced behind us, making sure that no one was following. I froze when I caught sight of what seemed like a pair of black eyes with yellow whites staring at us from the darkness behind the building. I blinked and the eyes were gone.

“You good?” Darius asked. He looked over his shoulder. “You see something.”

“No, it’s nothing. Trick of the light,” I said, shaking my head. No reason to get paranoid now. There was nothing there.

“Is this close? My fucking feet hurt,” Annabelle complained.

“Shouldn’t have worn those heels then,” I replied.

“They were worth it.”

“Damn right they were, you look good in them,” Darius agreed.

“Are we close or not,” Annabelle repeated.

“Yeah, almost there, a few more minutes,” I said.

I led them through the last stretch of road, then up the path that led to the cemetery. We all took out our phones and turned the flashlights of them on, lighting up the path. We walked up to it, then stopped at the fence. The cemetery felt more dangerous than it had the last time I’d been there. There was something about it that made me want to leave much more than I had last time. My sixth sense for danger, that instinctual, animal part of me, screamed that we shouldn’t be here.

It also gave me the heaviest hit of adrenaline I’d had all week.

“Ta-da. This is it,” I said.

Darius peeled away from my side, jumped over the fence, then meandered over to the memorial and started to read it. I hung back with Annabelle.

“This place feels wrong,” Annabelle said.

“Mhm, it’s always like that. It’s why it’s kind of cool.”

“You think this is cool?”

“I do.”

“This is the worst fucking dedication I’ve ever seen. May they find the peace they lacked in life?’ It doesn't even say who’s buried here.”

“Yeah, it’s shitty.”

“It’s fucking bullshit,” Darius spat. He sounded mad. It was startling. I’d never heard his voice even approach anger. Or maybe he wasn't angry and it was all in my head. That was more than possible. The mood of the cemetery was getting to me, seeping through my skin, making my heart race and everything seem more intense. It cut through the haze of booze and made me feel a bit more sober.

It also made me a lot braver.

“You want to see the tree?” I asked.

“Lead the way.”

“Annabelle?”

She sighed. “Yeah, we’re here. Let’s go.”

We hopped over the fence, and then I led Annabelle and Darius deeper into the cemetery. Every step I took made my heart beat faster, made me feel more _alive_. I was glad we came out here. Ahead, the lynching tree materialized from the darkness, a massive blob of darkness and misery in the night. I was glad I didn’t see any massive pieces of moss dangling down from its branches.

“This is it,” I said, stopping and gesturing to the tree. It seemed to shift around in the darkness as if it was being blown by an invisible, intangible breeze. Despite the burst of courage the alcohol and adrenaline had given me, I didn’t want to get closer.

Darius didn’t seem to have any of the same fears, he strode forward with confidence.

“Darius-”

“It’s fine,” he said, cutting me off. “It’s just a tree.”

There was no way he could believe it. The weight in the air was impossible to ignore.

Annabelle tensed up next to me and we watched Darius circle the tree, running his hand over the bark. When he vanished from sight, I held my breath until he reappeared.

“I found something,” he called out.

“Something? What the fuck is the something?" Annabelle replied.

“Someone carved a message into the tree.”

A knot of tension settled low in my gut. I itched for a cigarette to calm myself down. My hands shook as I took one out, lit it, and got it into my mouth. The nicotine settled me the tiniest bit. “What does it say?” I asked.

“Come here and read it yourself. There’s no one here.”

I really didn’t want to do it, but Annabelle took a step forward and I wasn’t going to hold her back. Together, we marched across the cemetery, then rounded the tree along with Darius. Darius shined his light on the message. It was hard to read in the dark, but the words were impossible to misread.

You’re next.

Fear bloomed inside of me and I wished I wasn’t drunk anymore. I wasn’t enjoying it now. The nice relaxing feeling it’d given me had twisted itself up into something that made me want to run out of the cemetery screaming.

“Was that here last time?” Darius asked me.

“I don’t know, I didn’t look around,” I said. “It might be new. Maybe. How would you even tell?”

Darius traced his fingers over the engraving. I flinched. “Don’t touch that.”

“’S not that bad,” he mumbled. “Do we know who Mr. Day was?” he asked.

“It was in the paper,” Annabelle said.

“No, but do we know who he actually was. As a person.” Darius said. “Serenity?”

“He was Catholic, not Protestant. I didn’t know him,” I said.

“He was a psychiatrist though right?”

“You think he’s killing psychiatrists?” I asked.

“I don’t know, what do ya’ll think?”

“I think I want to leave,” Annabelle said. “I’m not sober enough for this shit.”

“I’m with her.”

Darius smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes and looked eerie in the bright light our phones cast. He snapped a picture of the inscription. “Alright, we’ll go then.”

We turned to leave, ut as we did, I heard the unmistakable sound of a wood breaking underfoot to our right. I whipped my head to where it came from. My breath caught in my throat.

There was something there.

The same pair of eyes that’d I seen on the street was staring at the three of us. The rest of their body was awash in pitch black darkness even darker than the night around us. It was like a void had been cleaved in the air. The eyes moved forward until they hovered right over the thin fence of the cemetery.

“What the fuck is that,” Annabelle hissed. “We- that’s not me. Ya’ll fucking see that right?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“Hello?” Darius asked. “Are you a ghost? The protector of the tree? What’s going on?”

There wasn’t a hint of fear in his voice. It was unnaturally steady. It was the same way he sounded when I first met him, the same casual tone. I even saw him smile.

“What are ya’ll doing here?” the figure asked. It sounded like a man. Their voice had a thick southern accent that should’ve been long lost to time. There was only one person I could think of who would sound like that and be in the cemetery at night.

“Isiah?” I asked.

“Yes’m, that's my name. And ya’ll are?” he called back.

“We’re passing through,” Annabelle said.

“Passing through isn’t a name I’m familiar with,” Isiah said.

“I’m Darius and these are my friends Serenity and Annabelle. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Is it now?”

“Yes.”

His eyes flicked to the tree, then back to us. Then, they moved down until they were floating an inch away from the top of the fence. It was as if he was leaning on it with his elbows. “So what are ya’ll doing here this late? Passing through I’m guessing?”

“Yes and we’re leaving now,” Annabelle said.

“Already? What if we chatted for a bit? Ya’ll are interesting. Spare me some time?”

It wasn’t a request, it was a demand. We weren’t going to leave here unless he let us. I started to sweat. My skin itched. I hated the way he was looking at us. It was like we were children who’d wandered somewhere we really weren’t supposed to be.

“What do you want to chat about? We’re kind of tired. Had a big night,” Darius said.

“Oh really? What’d ya’ll get up to?”

“Bit of drinking. That’s all.”

Isiah whistled. “Ah, so that’s why ya’ll have been stumbling around.”

“You’ve been watching us?” Annabelle asked, her voice sharp.

“I saw ya’ll walk into the cemetery, so I suppose you could say that.”

No, he’d been watching us for longer. The eyes I saw on the street were proof of that. I shivered and reached down to grab Annabelle’s hand. She laced her fingers with mine and squeezed.

“Look, we want to go. We didn’t mean to bother you,” Annabelle said.

“It’s no bother. I like to talk.”

“Well, we don’t.”

Isiah narrowed his eyes, then laughed. His eyes lightened again. “You’ve got some bite to you. I respect that. Alright, well answer this for me. Where did ya’ll get that jewelry ya’ll are wearing? I’ve seen it around on a few people now. I might like to get some for myself.”

“We don’t know,” Annabelle lied.

“Think real hard about it then,” Isiah replied.

Annabelle squeezed my hand, then reached down and grabbed Darius’s. He let her hold it. He looked at her and the two of them had a silent conversation before she turned to me. It was obvious what she was asking. I nodded.

“They’re from a witch,” Annabelle answered

“Oh really? An honest to God, real life witch? Am I hearing ya'll right?”

“Yes sir,” Darius said.

“Well, I’ll be damned. What’s the name of this witch?”

“Madame Grace,” I said, my voice shaky. I wanted to ht myself. The last thing we needed to be doing right now was showing fear.

“Madame Grace?” Isiah repeated, then nodded. His eyes moved back up and away from the fence. “That's good to know. Very good. You know of any other witches around here? I’m trying to get the lay of the land. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back home here.”

He was asking about Maribelle and Waylon. He had to be. Did that mean they were still alive or was he asking us if we knew? I bounced on my feet. I wanted to run, but our conversation wasn’t over yet. I squeezed Darius’s hand. He could have the lead on this. He was the calmest and I didn’t know what the fuck to say.

“She’s the only one we know of,” Darius said.

“No others?”

“Not that we’ve seen alive,” Annabelle added.

“Is that another lie?”

“It’s not. We don’t know anything. We’re just students. We don’t- we don’t know what’s happening.”

“You know more than you’re letting on I think. You know a witch and you have some lovely jewelry and you knew who I am? Which leads me to another interesting question. How did you know that?”

“We found your letter,” Darius answered. “At Coastal State Hospital.”

“Oh. Well, it’s a good thing I carved that message into the tree then, isn’t it?

None of us answer. The air went still. Isiah was looking off and to the right. I took a step back and dragged Annabelle and Darius with me. “Walk,” I whispered.

“Are you-”

“Walk,” I repeated.

We slowly made our way away from Isiah and to the front of the cemetery. He didn’t move from where he was standing. His eyes stayed fixed on whatever point it was in the distance.

“You’re not working for the Doctors, are you?” Isiah called after us. His voice was low and dangerous. It was the same way people sounded before they got into a fight. God, I hoped this wasn’t about to turn into a fight.

“We’re digging up their graves Monday,” Darius replied.

Isiah started to slap. The noise was dulled by the darkness around him. “I’m happy to hear that, but before you go, can I ask you for something?”

“What?” Annabelle asked.

“Ya’ll aren’t going to get in my way, are you?” We stopped moving. Isiah’s eyes pierced into us. “No lies now. Only the truth.”

“If we answer, you have to let us leave,” Darius said. “You can’t stop us.”

“I agree.”

“We don’t know if we’re going to get in your way. We might or we might now. We’re not going to make you any promises because of that.”

“Ah, you’re lucky you made that deal with me first, otherwise I might’ve had to kill you,” he laughed. I was pretty sure it was not a fucking joke. “Ya’ll run along now. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

Isiah’s eyes retreated back, sinking into the darkness around him until the void like darkness faded away into the trees surrounding the cemetery. I held my breath. Was he really gone? Was he actually going to let us leave?

“Don’t just fucking stand there!” Annabelle hissed. She yanked on both mine and Dariu’s hand and started fast walking back to the front of the cemetery. “We’re leaving and we’re going to Madame Graces’ I don't give a shit if she’s sleeping. We’ll wake her up.

There were no objections.


	10. Interlude - Darius

Dr. Maye’s house looked like a shitty version of Annabelle’s. It was smack dab at the far east end of a massive piece of overgrown, weed infested property. The only area that looked like it got looked after was the ten feet of the house itself. To the left of the house, tucked up against the fence, was an old chicken coup, a stable, and a large barn where I assumed the mix of pigs, goats, sheep, and three peacocks that ran around the property slept in. Half of the animals were too old to be livestock, while the other half didn’t seem fat or sad enough for them to be livestock either.

“She has to have help,” Annabelle said. “There is no way she can take care of all of this herself.”

“She could just be playing farmer,” I said.

“You saw the pictures of her. She’s a 70-year-old psychiatrist who looked like she’s made out of glass. She’s not upkeeping shit."

“I see you’re underestimating her.” I scanned the field again and nodded. “If she does have help, then I bet it’s more than one person. That’s a lot of fucking animals, right?”

“Or she doesn’t care about the animals.”

“The animals seem fine to me.”

“Do you see the cemetery anywhere?” Annabelle changed the subject. She had a pair of binoculars pressed up against her face and was slowly sweeping the field. She’d been at it for ten minutes now, twice as long as I’d taken for my first look.

“If I saw it, I’d have told you by now.”

She shoved the binoculars into my hands and crossed her arms. “Look again,” she ordered.

“I didn't hear a please.”

“Darius.”

“That’s not please.”

She scowled, but she wasn’t really angry. Scowling was simply her response for any inconvenience, no matter how minor.

“Take it or I’m going to drive away and leave you here,” she threatened.

“Weird way to say please,” I replied, then brought the binoculars up to look through them. It was an exercise in futility. The lawn was too overgrown to catch sight of any tombstones and there was no other indication of where the alleged family cemetery would be. “If I could find a mirror, I could see myself wasting my time.”

“You’re useless. I should’ve taken Serenity.”

I lowered the binoculars and handed them back. “She wouldn’t have done better. If there is a cemetery, then it’s hidden by the weeds. Unless we get closer, we’re not going to find it.”

“We’re not getting closer.”

“Then we’re not finding it,” I said.

Annabelle rubbed a temple with one hand, then brought the binoculars back up. “I might have an idea of where it is.”

“Where?”

She pointed at the west end of the house near the tall wooden fence that marked the boundaries of the property. It was the most overgrown section of the yard, but it couldn’t hide the massive tree that sat just inside the fence. The tree had died years ago but was still going out of sheer stubbornness.

“Under that tree and as far away from the house as possible. You know how people are. Superstitious fucks,” she said.

“They’re not wrong to be. Magic is real you know.”

Annabelle leaned forward as if the extra inches were going to give her x-ray vision. “It’s there. It has to be there. The weeds stop over there.”

“They stop?” I asked. “What do you mean stop?”

“They’re not layered. Look,” Annabelle said, handing me back to binoculars.

I looked and found she was right. It was hard to tell due to tweed both ahead of and behind the spot, but underneath the tree appeared to be vacant of any weeds. “That doesn’t have to be a graveyard. Could be something else.”

“What else could it be? It’s the only spot in the yard that makes sense.”

“Maybe that’s where the sacrifice cats to fuel their magic. Did you ever think of that?”

“Yes, because an altar to sacrifice fucking _cats_ at makes more sense than a cemetery. Amazing critical thinking. You’re a genius, Darius. You should do all the planning from now on,” Annabelle said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I’m glad you’ve noticed. I told you I was a man of many talents.”

“If only one of those was shutting the fuck up.”

I smiled. I liked Annabelle’s sharp tongue. It was one of my favorite things about her. She grabbed the binoculars back, then turned the binoculars towards Dr. Maye’s house and peered in through the windows. Dr. Maye was home, but most of her curtains were drawn, making it hard to track her through the house. Annabelle and I had only been able to catch glimpses of her moving from room to room. If we had a better angle on the house, we would’ve been able to see more, but our little spot off the side of the road was too good to move out of. There, we were hidden from sight by undergrowth and trees.

“I never took you for a peeping tom,” I said conversationally.

She dropped her binoculars and looked at me with disgust. “The last thing I want to see is Dr. Maye naked.”

“Why are you looking into her house then?”

“You’re so fucking annoying. I really should’ve taken Serenity. She wouldn’t give me so much lip.”

“You sure about that?”

“Fuck yeah I’m sure. She listens better than you do.”

I put my hand on my chest in mock offense. “I’ll have you know, I’m a great listener.”

“You didn’t listen when Serenity told you the cemetery was dangerous last night, now did you?”

“Are we really going back to this? We were all drunk and if I remember properly, you wanted to go too.”

“You goaded me into it.”

“Sure, but you goaded Serenity so really we’re all guilty aren’t we?”

Annabelle gave me her most unimpressed look. I detected a trace of lingering anger. Clearly yelling at me the entire walk to Madame Grace’s shop and the entire ride home wasn’t enough for her. Granted, I deserved some of it. Going to the cemetery was not one of my better ideas, but I didn’t feel bad about anything that happened. I never would either. We’d talked to Isiah, heard him all but confirm that Maribelle and Waylon were still alive, and left without promising anything. Considering I was drunk when it all happened, I thought it one of my finer performances.

“You were the one who whined in her ear about it, not me,” Annabelle said.

“You joined in though. If you didn’t say anything, we wouldn’t have gone.”

“Yeah, it’s because she trusts me more than you. Cry about it.”

There it was. I smiled. Annabelle was good at cloaking her emotions behind words, but I was just as good at ferreting them out. It was fun for me. For all her posturing as aloof and untouchable, she was still as human as the rest of us.

“When did I say I knew her better? Someone is getting defensive.”

“There is nothing to be defensive over.”

“Do you want to know what I think?” I asked.

“No.”

“Cool, I’m going to tell you anyway. I think you’re jealous, but you really don’t have to be. I’m willing to share. I already told you that.”

Annabelle dragged her hands down on her face and groaned. I laughed. She was hot when she was frustrated. The way her porcelain skin went flushed so easily with anger and the way her flawless skin twisted itself up into deep wrinkles was a sight to behold. It made bickering with her 100 percent worth it.

“I’m not jealous,” she said finally.

“Good.”

She glared at me. “You know what I think?”

“Tell me.”

“I think you’re not half as clever as you think you are. Instead of just fucking asking if Serenity likes you, you went and made it this big passive-aggressive gesture.”

Oh, was she finally ready to talk about it? That was good. I’d been meaning to have this conversation for a while now.

“Rubbing your friends' shoulders is passive-aggressive? That’s news to me.”

“Answer the question.”

“Well, why haven’t you asked her yet?” I asked. “I shot my shot and she didn’t bite. You’re more than welcome to try where I failed.

“Shot your shot? You were all over her last night!” Annabelle accused. “Did you think I didn’t notice that?”

“See, you are jealous. Why did you say you weren’t when you are?”

Annabelle’s glare intensified. I smiled sweetly in return. I was getting to her and I loved every second of it.

“Why haven’t you asked?” Annabelle asked again.

“I prefer a more subtle approach,” I answered.

“And how did that go huh?”

“You think it went poorly, but she was all over me last night like you said, so clearly it went pretty well.”

“You’re pissing me off on purpose. I’m not falling for it,” Annabelle growled, looking like she was ready to kill me. It should’ve been a sign to drop the topic and reengage at a more optimal time, but if I let the issue drop now, Annabelle might never pick it up again.

“Oh yeah?”

She shoved me. My back hit the car and then she was in my face, glaring up at me. “What is your problem? We’re supposed to be casing the fucking house, not talking about your seduction woes.”

“You brought Serenity up, not me,” I pointed out.

“You’ve been annoying me about this since it happened. Don’t act like you you’re not dying to talk about your seduction woes.”

“Mine? I thought they were yours too.”

“Yeah, well what if I changed my mind and I think all of this is a stupid, shitty idea? What then?”

I shrugged. “Then you can drop it and I’ll go for her alone.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Annabelle’s gaze darkened and she looked like she was ready to choke me to death. I wanted to kiss her.

So I did.

She returned in kind and she was not nice about it.

Not that I was looking for that to begin with.

She kissed aggressively, with more teeth than was strictly necessary. if I had enough hair for her to pull, I’m sure she would’ve done that too, but instead, she settled for pulling on the lapels of my jacket. When we broke apart, she was still glaring, but it was a bit less intense than before.

“So you’re totally not jealous,” I said.

She stepped away from me and took a deep breath. “Can you be serious? For a few seconds?”

“I’m always serious.”

“You’re not.”

“Try me then.”

Annabelle went quiet. I leaned against the car and let her sort out what she was thinking. I took the chance to try and figure out how I’d respond. Annabelle was possessive, I’d learned that much. She liked what she liked, and once she had something she wanted, she didn’t give it up. It was why hooking up with her the first time was so dangerous. No matter how much she insisted that she could keep sex and feelings separate, I didn’t believe her.

That should’ve been enough for me to back off, but instead, I kept going. It was a bad thing to do, but if worse came to worse, I’d be fine. I had a dorm to go back to, no matter how shitty it was, and Annabelle would get over me quickly. All the drama it would cause would be over and done within less than a week.

With Serenity in the equation, it got a lot more complicated.

She knew I was fucking around with Annabelle. She had to. And little, by little, she was trying to pull away, which wasn’t what I wanted. She was too interesting to let go. I’d never met someone who was simultaneously more insecure than a freshman in high school, but confident enough to pick locks under pressure. She was nice too, which shouldn’t have been possible. Everyone I’d ever met who was the target of so many sneers and rumors was bitter, but she was still kind enough to try and drag Annabelle and me away from a witch — a fucking _witch_ — when she thought we were in danger.

She wasn’t hard on the eyes either. Her appearance was as interesting as her personality. Her face was a fascinating blend of androgyny leaning feminine, and she had a pair of legs that could kill. Even her long, usually unkempt hair was a feature, not a bug. She looked almost wild in her short shorts and pink shirt. A person who was as close to not caring about what people thought of her as possible. I found it admirable.

Which was why I wanted her. I was too curious and selfish for anything else, which is why I decided to convince Annabelle to pursue Serenity with me. It elegantly solved all the problems. There couldn’t be any infighting if we were all mutually okay with sleeping with one another. The other option, not engaging at all, was still

“How does this end?” Annabelle asked.

“Uh, with us being friends? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Darius-”

“I seriously don’t. What do you mean end? We’re not dating each other and it’s not like we’re going to go date Serenity.”

“Alright, well what if she wants to then? Did you think of that?”

“Then we don’t do it?”

“What, you don’t think it’s going to be awkward?”

“It’s already awkward if you haven’t noticed.”

Annabelle started to pace, then glanced back at the house. “If we're done here, we should go get the shovels. We can talk about this in the car.’

Ah, the classic trick. She was trying to trap me so I couldn’t escape the conversation. Why she thought I’d try was beyond me. No matter how uncomfortable she felt, I was perfectly at ease. No matter how this went, I’d be fine.

“That works.”

“You’re driving.”

“Yup.”

We got into her car and I pulled out onto the road. Annabelle punched in some hardware store 50 miles away. It was a bit much in my opinion, but I didn’t mind being careful.

“So are we going to keep talking or-”

“Have you done something like this before?”

“Done what?”

“Darius.”

“I’ve jugged multiple friends with benefits at the same time before, so yes, I have.

“This is obviously different. We live together if we haven’t noticed and it’s not like Serenity or I hook up with anyone. If we do this, it’d just be between the three of us.”

I figured that. It really was another red flag. Annabelle wanted commitment of some sort. I didn’t know much about Serenity’s preference in that regard, but I got the sense that she’d want something similar. That was okay though. If I got them to set their expectations low enough, it would be commitment in name only.

“So what, you want me to commit to the same?” I asked.

“I’d like to know who you’re fucking if you’re going to be fucking me too. And I want to approve of them because you’re not dragging some nasty rumor to my doorstep and getting me involved.”

Oh my God, she wanted to _approve_. I laughed. “Should I get everyone I’m interested in to fill out a form for you to review?”

“If you’re going to be sleeping with me, yes.”

Only Annabelle could say something so ridiculous with a straight face, but at least she was willing to compromise. She was lucky that she and Serenity were both attractive and interesting enough to make it worth it. “Sure. I can do that,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What if I told you I didn’t want you to sleep with anyone else?”

“Well, Serenity would be sad.”

“Who wasn’t Serenity.”

I shrugged and dug my hole deeper. “I’d try it out I guess. Maybe.”

“Then why the fuck don’t we just date? I don’t get it. What the fuck is your aversion to that word?”

I tapped my fingers on the wheel. “Even if I was fine with it, which I’m not saying I am, I don’t know how Serenity would react to you asking to date her. Trying to dive right into it seems like a bad idea.”

Annabelle rolled her eyes. “A bad idea? Is it somehow a better idea if we do the same thing and don’t call it dating?”

“I’d say so.”

“There is literally no difference. It’s just a word.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. Dating comes with a lot of implications. I’m only good at a small subset of what it implies,” I said.

“What? You’re saying you’re only good for sticking your dick in things? What are you a caveman?”

“Hey, I bottom too. Don’t pigeon hole me like that,” I said.

“What parts of the word ‘dating’ do you think you’re bad at. I want to know. Tell me.”

“You’re really demanding aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am. So tell me,” Annabelle demanded.

Ah shit. Here it was. In a way, I’d always known this part was coming. It was way too optimistic to think that Annabelle wouldn’t try and drill down to find out why she wasn’t getting exactly what she wanted. Leave it to her to need an explanation for everything when it didn’t go her way.

“I’m not good at the feelings part of dating.”

“You ever try?”

“Not really.”

“Then how do you know?”

Because I don’t really care about what happens to you, I thought, but I didn’t dare speak it out loud. It wasn’t a normal thing to think. It wasn’t a good thing to think, but it was true and it was a good reason for not letting people get attached to me. I might be able to walk away and be fine no matter what happened at the end of the day, but I knew other people couldn’t. They liked people. They loved them, but I couldn’t fit into that. People didn’t like me. They liked my persona. Which they should. It was a very good persona. I’d put a lot of effort into perfecting it and I liked it quite a bit myself. Campy gay man was a lovely niche to occupy. It had plenty of room to subvert expectations and the sheer theater of it made it easier to hide that it was all one elaborate performance.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t the perfect actor. I slipped up sometimes. More than sometimes if I was being honest. Enough for someone to realize there was something behind the curtains. If they were dating me, that gave them all the incentive they needed to try and find out what was there. No need to horrify them when they peeled them back found out the cold, unfeeling creature that lurked behind mine. It was better to never let anyone have a peak. It was much more fun for everyone that way.

“Something tells me I’m not good to date. That’s all.”

“Well, I don’t give a fuck. I still want to try.”

“What does dating mean to you exactly?” I asked, continuing to walk that razor thin line that Annabelle was laying out for me. It was reckless and stupid, but the sheer drama and novelty of it all kept me going. Even if this all ended up as a mess, what a fantastic mess it would be to behold.

“It means we do the same thing as we’re doing now, but I call you my boyfriend.”

“See, I don’t think that’s what most people mean when they talk about dating. Remember those implications I was talking about?” I asked.

“It’s a label. It means whatever the fuck I want it to mean.”

“So is calling this that a deal breaker or what?”

“The only deal breaker is you not fucking someone who isn’t me or Serenity.”

“Whoa, wait. That’s new. You said you’d approve anyone I tried to hook up with. You can’t take that off the table now.”

“You said you’d try it out.”

“I said I might,” I corrected.

“Then try it out starting now.”

Ah shit. Should’ve been more careful with what I said. This is what I get for trying to have this conversation and drive at the same time. Even when I knew Annabelle was trying to play me, she still got me. I’d take my licks though. She’d won them fair and square.

“Alright fine. So just to make sure we’re clear, if I say yes we can date, there won’t be any more expectations? All I have to do is stick by the rules you set up? You won’t want anything else?”

I could see Annabelle looking at me like I’d lost my mind from the corner of my eye, but I kept my body language and my expression neutral.

“What line are you trying to walk here? Because it makes no fucking sense to me.”

“You want me to honest?”

“No, lie to my fucking face Darius. That’s what I want.”

“I’m just trying to get you to lower your expectations.”

“You can’t, there are already on the floor.”

They weren’t, but I was going to take her word for it. I committed exactly what she said to memory too. Just in case I ever needed to quote it back to her in the future. “Well then this won’t be a problem then,” I said.

We lapsed into an awkward silence, but I had no intention of being the first to break it. I could sit there all day and be fine. Annabelle was going to have to make the next move because I wanted as much plausible deniability as possible in case things went wrong.

“So we’re dating then?” Annabelle asked.

“Nope! This is an all or nothing. If Serenity doesn’t agree, then we’re not.”

“Greedy.”

“I take pride in it,” I replied.

Annabelle scoffed. “Fine, we’ll ask Serenity when we get back tonight. To date. Not anything else. We’re starting with that. You failed, now it’s my turn.”

“By all means,” I said.

_

The sun was just setting by the time we got back to Annabelle’s house. I hoped that meant her sisters were still asleep. I liked to think of them as wraiths, but wraiths didn’t have a consistent sleep schedule, and wraiths didn’t threaten to kick you out of their house. I wouldn’t have any problems if I was with Annabelle, but the less they saw of me, the better.

“Leave the shovels in the car. We’ll transfer them to Elise’s car on Monday,” Annabelle ordered as she got out of the car.

“Got it.”

Annabelle unlocked her door, then stopped and looked back at me. “Are you ready for this?”

“No, I’ve been lying to you just like you asked.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Yes, I’m ready,” I rolled my eyes. “We’re just asking her out. No need to make a production over it.”

“Are you calling me dramatic?”

“Yup.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me yourself, coward.”

Annabelle gave me the finger, then unlocked the door and walked inside. I followed her into the darkness. With every step we took up the stairs, Annabelle got tenser. You’d have thought she was going into battle instead of asking one of her friends out. I almost asked her if she still wanted to do this, but I didn’t want to push the issue and ruin all the momentum we’d built up to this point.

We reached the third floor and entered the living room. Serenity was there, lying on one of the couches, her laptop perched high on her chest. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and she was watching the screen intently. One of her hands was resting on the keyboard, while the other sat low on her stomach. She bit her lip. I couldn’t help myself.

“Watching porn?” I asked.

Serenity jumped like she’d been shocked, her laptop almost clattered to the floor, but she managed to catch it before it did. She set it on the couch, stood up, and shifted her hair in front of her face in an attempt to hide her magnificent, strawberry red blush.

God, she was cute.

“No! You just- ya’ll fucking scared me, Christ.”

“Aww, you think I’m scary? I don’t hurt cute girls, don’t worry.”

Serenity frowned. “Not in the mood for that now.”

“For…?”

“You called me a girl. Don’t do that. Not right now. I’d rather be called a guy right now.”

Oh. That was good to hear. I’d thought our little quest was going to end before it even started. Annabelle looked about ready to flee the room, but she managed to relax enough that Serenity wouldn’t notice.

“Allow me to correct myself, I don’t hurt cute boys. Better?”

“Yeah.”

“Lovely,” I said, then strode to the center of the room. I put my hands behind my back and tried to affect the air of a courier delivering a message to his king. “So, I’ll cut to chase. My approach failed and Annabelle demanded we try out her strategy, so I’m here to do that. Serenity, do you want to date us? With some caveats of course. It’ll be a special type of dating.”

Serenity blinked at me. “What?”

“Do you want to date us? Both of us,” Annabelle repeated.

Serenity looked like we told him the earth was flat and the moon was made out of cheese. He sat back down on the couch and grabbed his necklaces. “This isn’t funny. It’s really not. In fact, I’m kind of pissed that you thought it would be.”

“You think we’re fucking with you?” Annabelle asked. “Really?”

“Yeah? After what you did the other day, what else am I supposed to think? I’ve known you for fucking _years_ Annabelle, and you’ve never shown any interest in me. I’m-”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s not bullshit, you haven’t.”

Annabelle crossed her arms. “I had your back every day in high school and I’m currently letting you live in my fucking house. For free. You think I don’t like you?”

“As a friend! You never- you were into Elise, not me. I was never in the picture.”

“Well, if I wasn’t clear enough then, I’m being clear now.”

“How long have you liked me then?” Serenity asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes! It fucking does! You can’t just walk in here and- this is stupid,” Serenity said. He tugged at his hair, then looked at me. “Is this a joke or not?”

“Nope.”

“You want to date me?”

Well no. I didn’t. At least not in the traditional sense of that word. I’d already said as much, but getting to those nuances right now was going to throw things off track. We had to make sure he was interested first.

“Yeah. I do. You’re hot and you’re cool, why wouldn’t I?” I said.

“I’m not hot. At all.”

That wasn’t a rabbit hole I was willing to dive down. Not right now at least. No argument in the world would convince Serenity that I really did find him attractive. I wasn’t going to play therapist. It wasn’t my job to fix his self-esteem. I was just here to deliver the facts.

“We’ll agree to disagree. I think you are and you can’t make me not think that.”

“I do too,” Annabelle said.

Serenity took a deep breath and shut his eyes. His other hand went down to his bracelet and he started toying with it. It wasn’t a promising sign if we were stressing him that much.

“So what, ya’ll are poly now?” Serenity asked.

“I’m willing to try it. It seems fun,” I said.

“Fun,” Serenity muttered.

I looked back at Annabelle. She stepped forward.

“Do you like us or not?” she asked.

“I don’t know how you want me to answer that,” Serenity replied.

“How we want you to? What are you on a fucking game show? There is no right answer. Just tell us how you feel.”

“Asking again isn’t making it any clearer. I don’t know if I want to date you.”

There was that word again. Had to nip it in the bud now. Obviously, he wasn’t listening when I said we were dating with caveats. Time to explain the concept, because Annabelle sure as well wasn’t trying to correct him.

“Alright, let’s break this down more,” I said. “Annabelle and I have a different conception of ‘dating’ we’d like to propose. But first, can you answer some questions for me.”

“Sure. Go for it,” Serenity said.

He wasn’t shutting down. Good. We had a chance to salvage this. “You like us like us as friends right?” I asked.

Serenity looked at me like I was stupid. “Yes?”

“Is that a question?” Annabelle asked.

“No, it’s- fuck off Annabelle, I obviously like you both as friends. Duh.”

I nodded. “Cool, now do you want to have sex with us or what?”

Serenity choked on his next breath and started to cough. I walked over and patted his back.

“Chill out and please don’t die. It’s just a question,” I said.

Serenity kept coughing for a few more seconds, then wiped their mouth with their arm. They were back to blushing. Red was a good color for them. It worked well with their hair and bright green eyes.

“Well?” Annabelle asked.

“I- yeah. I do. Are you happy?” Serenity snapped. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Holy shit! It’s not about what we want to hear, it’s about how you feel for fucks sake! Just tell us!”

“I don’t know how I feel!” Serenity shouted back.

“Then just answer the question!”

“I fucking did!”

The two of them glared at one another. They were a pair of cats, hackles raised, about to shred one another apart with their claws. I was tempted to let it happen. To see where their screaming match would lead to. It would’ve been fascinating. I could almost feel their anger swirling around in the air like wine in a glass. I wanted to take a long drink of it and savor the flavor. I couldn’t remember a time I’d been as angry as they were now about anything.

Unfortunately, letting it play out wasn’t conducive to my current goal.

“Both of you, relax. We’re just talking. Don’t fucking kill each other please?” I said, moving to stand between the two of them.

“She started it,” Serenity said.

“I’m sorry?” Annabelle asked, taking a step forward. “I started it?”

“Look, I want to let you two go at it, but can we finish this before you start having hate sex. Please?”

That took the winds out of both their sails. Annabelle blanched and Serenity covered her face like she was in a boxing match. I mentally patted myself on the back.

“Alright, well we’ve solved the problem I think. We all like one another as friends, and we all want to screw one another. That’s all that really needed to be clarified,” I said.

Serenity dropped his hands. “That’s it?”

“Yup, that’s it. We don't’ need to overcomplicate it, we don’t have to say we’re dating, we can just…vibe.”

I could feel Annabelle glaring at me, but I didn’t really care. I might’ve undermined her, but it was for the greater good. I’d compromised for her, she could compromise for me and Serenity.

“Vibe,” Annabelle. “Fucking vibe. Really?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Serenity laughed. It was a welcome noise at first, but then he didn’t stop. He laughed until his face was red from the lack of oxygen and was doubled over. Tears ran down her face. “Ya’ll, fuck ya’ll are out of your minds,” he choked out. “Out of your fucking minds.”

“You interested though?”

Serenity's laughter died down and he slowly sat down. He looked back and forth between me and Annabelle. I gave him my most reassuring smile.

“I’m…interested. Sure, but I’m not- I want time. To think. And figure this out. You can’t just say this shit and have me nod my head like it’s all fine and makes sense.”

“It’s really not complicated,” Annabelle said.

“There are two of you.”

“And?”

“What do you mean-”

“Annabelle, please come here. YOu don’t have to stand over there. We’re not sick.”

Annabelle stalked over and stood in front of Serenity, looking down at him. Serenity held her gaze. Neither of them moved for a long few seconds. I’m sure they were having some sort of emotional moment, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t use a bit of motivation. I wasn’t going to wait for ages for them to reach the logical conclusion that staring into each other's eyes led to.

“Just kiss already,” I said.

Annabelle leaned in closer. “Do you want to?” she asked.

“This doesn’t me I’m agreeing to…do whatever else. We’re just kissing,” he said.

“Sure,” Annabelle said, and before Serenity could get out another word, she kissed him.

It was almost surreal. So much build up and arguing for one little kiss. At least it was worth it.

Annabelle pulled away, her eyes dark, and smiled down at Serenity. A real smile. Not the kind she gave to someone to get what she wanted. For the first time, I saw Annabelle with all of her defenses down. No scowl to hid behind, no acrid words.

Just her.

It was unnerving. It remained me that she was a person deep inside. One with feelings and emotions that were more complicated than I could even begin to imagine. Emotions that were going to be directed at me.

Fuck.

“Your turn,” Annabelle said.

“Oh is it?” I asked. I smiled at Serenity and brought my face close to his. “Serenity?”

Serenity’s eyes were wide and unsure, but he wasn’t pulling away. I took the moment to admire him. He was gorgeous. I wanted to kiss every single freckle on his face. I wanted to find out how easily his skin, so pale and soft, would bruise. I wanted to run my hands through his long, strawberry blond hair, and maybe tug it, just a little bit.

And I wanted to kiss his pretty pink lips.

He shut his eyes, gathered his courage, then leaned forward, and kissed me. He wasn’t very graceful and it was obvious he hadn’t kissed much before, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It meant he was teachable and hadn’t developed any bad habits. I didn’t mind showing him how to make it feel good either. I took control of the kiss, and Serenity let me. He seemed happy too like he was just waiting for me to kiss him harder and show him what to do.

 _Oh, this will be fun,_ I thought.

I pulled away and smiled at him. He let out tiny little pants, his eyes wide. Annabelle sat down behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling Serenity back and to her chest. Their height difference made it a bit awkward, but then Serenity let himself slide further down the couch and put his legs up on my lap, and rested his head on Annabelle’s shoulder. They looked good like that. Comfortable. I sat down and threw Serenity’s legs onto my lap, then turned my gaze back to the two of them.

“More?” Annabelle asked.

Serenity nodded. She kissed him again.

I couldn’t wait for my turn to come back around.

_

I took another sip of my vodka and looked out into the night. Annabelle and Serenity were asleep in Annabelle’s bed, curled up around one another. Once things had settled, Serenity seemed happy with how it all went. Annabelle did too. Serenity still hadn’t given us an answer on what we were doing, but his actions spoke louder than words. He was kissing us and sleeping in the same bed. I’d gotten almost exactly what I wanted.

So why did I barely care?

I downed the rest of my vodka, then set it down next to me and slumped against the wall. It made me feel warm. It made me feel…not normal. Which stood as proof that I could feel differently, that there was no reason that I couldn’t care about things. I had emotion. I could feel, and therefore, I could care.

It was a rock solid argument. The premises were solid. The conclusion followed, but it didn’t feel strong. It felt like dust in the wind or sand through my fingers. Still, I knew there was something to it, just like there was something solid to sand and dust. If only I get the pieces to click together. Then maybe I could stop feeling like a child who didn’t care if he broke his toys.

Oh, I was so selfish, but I didn’t care about being selfish. I couldn’t imagine how anyone couldn’t be selfish. I’d spent so many hours trying to convince myself not to be, but I never got anywhere, just like I wasn’t getting anywhere now.

This was all an exercise in futility.

I sighed, then stood up, grabbed my glass, then slipped back inside. There was no point in staying up all night, thinking myself in circles, and berating myself for something I couldn’t control. It was easier to fall back on my old mantra. The one that had carried me through my life ever since I was a kid.

_It’s not a disorder if it doesn’t negatively impact my life, normal is a meaningless word, and I’m happy._

As I poured myself another glass of vodka, I got the craving for a cigarette. I hated it. Cigarettes weren’t even a good vice. There was no high, and all they did was kill you faster, but I craved one anyway. I’d have to convince Serenity to stop smoking so I didn’t fall down the rabbit hole myself.

Tonight would be the last one.

I slipped into Annabelle’s room and plucked a cigarette from Serenity’s rapidly emptying pack, then stepped back outside with my drink, lit my cigarette, and stared off into the night. I felt like I was in some sort of shitty melodramatic film, but I was pretty sure I could do better than melodrama. I looked down Annabelle’s long driveway, swallowed up by the darkness and shrouded by the trees that lined the property. They were tall pillars of shadow in the night. I shut my eyes, took a drink, and decided that instead of a melodrama, I was in a horror film. Annabelle’s house was much better suited for that anyway.

The door opened behind me. I didn’t jump. Too bad I wasn’t in a horror movie. That would’ve been the perfect time for a jump scare. I turned around and found Serenity standing in the threshold of the door, his hair messy and eyes tired. He looked at the cigarette in my mouth, then the cup in my hand, and sighed.

“Drinking? Really?”

“Care to join me?”

“You stole one of my cigarettes.”

I took a long drag and blew the smoke straight up into the air. “Oops.”

Serenity shut the door behind him and stepped out onto the balcony. We were only a foot apart. He shifted from foot to foot, then leaned back against the door and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Why are you out here? Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Sleep is for the weak.”

“Darius.”

“Wasn’t tired, there is no big mystery to it,” I said. I swallowed more vodka. It burned on the way down, but when it hit my stomach, warmth radiated out from my core to the tips of my fingers. I loved the feeling. Even if everything else failed to make me feel different, drugs would always work. “Why are you out there?” I asked.

“You woke me up,” Serenity accused.

“Oh? Sorry, I thought I was being quiet.”

“You were. I just- I couldn’t sleep either,” he said. He looked anywhere that wasn’t me and shoved his hands into the pockets of my sweatpants. One’s he borrowed from me since his clothes were still in the dyer. Something was appealing about that. I liked seeing him in my clothes, and that was feeling, right? I didn’t know if I cared about it in a traditional sense, but I definitely enjoyed it enough to want to see it again, so maybe I could call it my own version of caring.

I took a drink.

“Did you forget your lines?” I asked.

Serenity blinked. I saw them frown. “What? My lines?’

“You want to say something, but you looked stumped. Do you want me to grab you your cue cards or…?”

“What? I- fuck you. You’re being a dick.”

“I am? I thought I was helping you out.”

Serenity pulled their cigarettes out of their pocket and lit one. I clicked my tongue in disapproval.

“Those will kill you, you know,” I said.

“We’re really going to do this?”

I shrugged. “It’s the truth. I don’t know if Madame Grace can cure cancer. Who knows though? She might be able to it a shot.”

“You’re smoking too,” he pointed out.

“Only because you brought these around me. I have poor impulse control. It’s one of my many charms.”

Serenity took a drag of their cigarette, then let the smoke uncurl from their mouth. It was almost black in the night. “Last one then. For both of us.”

“A quitting pact? How romantic.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I am too.”

Serenity started to speak but settled for inhaling more smoke. I did the same. We still hadn’t worked up to what he wanted to say, but I was fine waiting here all night until he spat it out. Wasn’t like I was doing anything but resting and preparing for Monday tomorrow anyway. Besides, I liked teasing Serenity. He didn’t get pissed off like Annabelle did, but he had a hard time hiding how he felt at any given time. It was too much fun to watch all the different emotions dance across his face. Serenity felt deeply. It might’ve been the most fascinating thing about him.

“Okay. Fine. This is our last cigarette then,” he said.

“Excellent.”

Serenity looked around wildly, took a long deep inhale, then dropped their cigarette to the ground still burning. “What is the deal with this- this thing you, Annabelle, and I have now? I don’t get it. Why me and what the fuck is going on?”

Ah, this again. I put out my own cigarette on the railing of the balcony, then let it clatter to the floor before finishing my drink. If I left the butts out here and Annabelle found them, she was going to be righteously angry, and not in the fun way. I’d have to pick them up once we were done here.

“It’s exactly what I said earlier.”

“Well, earlier wasn’t really clear. I was getting some mixed messages,” Serenity replied.

“I’m pretty sure we’re all on the same page now.”

“Are we?”

“We are for me, what counts as ‘same page’ for you,” I asked.

Serenity shoved his hands back into his pockets and slouched down further. It was as if he could fold himself up into the darkness of the air and vanish. Maybe one day he could. There had to be some witch out there who had lost all touch with reality and could do whatever the fuck they wanted.

“I don’t know? That we all want the same things? That our expectations are the same?”

“Aren’t they? We agreed that we were all going to sleep with one another and that we’d be friends, didn’t we?” I cocked my head to the side. “Do you not want that?” I asked.

“No! No, I do! I just- you’re acting like this is simple. And that’s it’s going to be fine and that I’m overthinking it, but I don’t think I am. I think this is monumentally fucking complicated and this isn’t going to go well and- we just- should we really be doing this? Right now? In the middle of all of this?”

“It sort of sounds like you don’t want to.”

Serenity threw her head back. It bounced off the door with a loud smack. “That’s not the fucking _point!_ " he shouted.

I took a step forward until we were inches away from one another, then met his eyes. I saw fear in them. Serenity was tensed like a prey animal about to bolt and if I didn’t want him to, I was going to have to be careful. Really fucking careful.

God, I hated being careful.

“Before you say anything, hear me out first, alright? Please?” I asked.

Serenity looked away from me and passed my head. Their shoulder relaxed slightly. Good. I took a quarter step back, giving him some more space before I cleared my throat and began. “I’m aware that this is complicated, which is why I’m not twisting myself up into knots trying to figure out every bit. You’re going to drive yourself up the fucking wall doing that. Is this the best idea I’ve ever had? Maybe not, but we’re not royals in a court tactically fucking and marrying people. Even if this all blows up, we’ll be fine. We’ll move on, and we’ll still be friends. You and Annabelle are clearly capable of that considering ya’ll are both still friends with Elise. So how about, instead of making yourself want to scream by thinking of everything that could go wrong, you enjoy yourself. How about that?”

Serenity looked down. I could see him chewing over my words. More of the tension sank out of his shoulders, and then they slid to the ground and took a seat on the floor of the balcony. I sat down with him. Looking down at them was only going to make him inferior, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Why do you like me?” he asked. “And don’t bring up my appearance. I don’t want to hear any of that bullshit, no matter how true you think it is. Give me something else.”

I had to sell this. He wasn’t going to believe me otherwise. God, I wished he wasn’t so self-conscious. I always felt like a liar whenever I talked about things I liked. Even when it all came out fine and I sold it the way I was supposed to, I never felt sincere doing it, but I could sacrifice feeling a bit uncomfortable for a few minutes if it meant preventing Serenity from destroying our already fragile agreement.

“Fishing for compliments isn’t cute,” I said.

“Well I’m fucking doing it anyway, so you better have some good ones.”

“Well, you’re impulsive, self-conscious, and you love to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. I find that all to be very attractive.”

“What? Those aren’t- are you fucking with me again?”

“You’re also braver than you give yourself credit for, and you put up with a lot of bullshit but still hold your head high. I like that. I like the way you laugh, I like the sound of your voice, I like to listen to you bicker, and I even like to watch you wind yourself up tighter than a spring when you worry about things. You care. A lot. I like that too.” I stuck out my arms and leaned back on my hands. “Convinced yet?”

Serenity let out a long exhale like she was doing a breathing exercise. Maybe he was. It was hard to see the rise and fall of his chest in the dark.

“Alright. Fine- I- I’ll believe you. For now.”

That was about the best victory I could’ve hoped for. The magic words I’d been trying to get him to say.

“Now why does Annabelle like me? You, fine. I get it. You’re new. YOu don’t really know me, but I’ve known her for years and she’s- this is out of nowhere alright? I’m just worried.”

“I never could’ve guessed.”

“Darius.”

“I’m not Annabelle, but I’m sure if you asked her why she’d tell you.”

“No, she wouldn’t. You know she wouldn’t. When is Annabelle straight forward?”

“When it’s the best way to get what she wants. She was the one who wanted to just ask you, so you should just ask her. You’ll be doing yourself a favor,” I said.

“Can’t you just tell me?

“Hmm, well if you write me a sonnet and wax poetic about how great I am like I just did for you, maybe I can give you a few hints.”

Serenity yelped and fell back into the door as it swung open. Annabelle shone the light of her phone at me and scowled, then looked down at me and Serenity.

“It is 3:30 AM and you two are making way too much fucking noise. I tried to be nice and let you talk, but I’m done being nice. Both of you are going to come the fuck back to bed or I will drag you there myself so help me God.”

I stood up, then bowed. “Whatever you desire my queen. How dare I do anything without your express permission. I forget myself truly.”

“Get the fuck back to bed Darius.”

I offered Serenity a hand and pulled him to his feet, then wrapped my arm around his waist. He didn’t move away.

“You could've warned me before you opened the door,” he complained.

“You should’ve been sitting there,” Annabelle replied.

“Bitch.”

“Yeah, I’m the bitch for making you go to sleep. I know.” Annabelle turned on her heel and walked back inside as she snapped her finger. “Now come.”


	11. Everything That Rises - 2.1

The Maye family graveyard was somehow more pathetic than the rest of the property was, which was frankly impressive. It was a square of bare reddish dirt overlooked by a dead tree with no leaves on its branches. The tree was the only plant around. Nothing else grew, not even the weeds that had taken over the rest of the yard. It was as if the earth had been salted. Five weather tombstones formed a pentagon, with Maribelle and Waylon’s shared grave serving as the point. For whatever reason, they’d gotten buried together.

“We’re only going to have to dig up one grave. That’s nice,” Willow said.

“We were only going to do one in the first place. If one of them isn't there, then the other sure as hell won't be either,” Darius replied.

I looked around us and leaned on my shovel. “We’re pretty exposed out here,” I said. The weeds in the yard weren’t tall enough to obscure the upper halves of our bodies from the road. If anyone drove by, they’d see the five of us digging.

“It’ll be fine,” Darius said. “Elise is watching and we’ll duck down if someone comes by. Even if someone does see us, they’re not going to care. They don’t know what we’re doing here. We could be her help for all they know.”

“It makes me nervous.”

Darius stabbed his shovel into the dirt of Maribelle and Waylon’s grave. “Well the faster we do this, the faster you can go back to being not nervous. So start digging.”

The work was miserable. I had no illusions that digging up a grave was going to be easy, but even with the three of us working together, progress was slow. It didn’t help that we were ducking down every ten minutes or so when Elise called us to warn us about a car going by.

The pain in my shoulder wasn’t doing me any favors either. The first hour had been fine, but as we stretched into our second hour of digging, they were starting to burn with pain. By the third hour, it felt like someone had taken a rusty knife and was trying to saw through all my muscles and tendons. The pain there overshadowed the deep ache starting up in my arms, legs, and back, and almost became the only thing I could think about.

Darius and Willow were starting to slow too and all three of us were spending more time drinking the water that Darius had brought and leaning on our shovels than actually digging. It wasn’t good. We had a decent hole going, one you could stand in without any problems but we still hadn't hit the casket. I was starting to worry that there wasn’t a casket to hit in the first place or that it was buried so deep that we never going to find it.

Another hour crawled by, and then it was 8:15, Doctor Maye’s conference ended in 15 minutes, we were all exhausted, and we still hadn’t hit the fucking casket.

I wanted to scream.

“Serenity, you’re not helping,” Darius grunted. He stood at the bottom of the hole we dug, almost shoulder to shoulder with me. The jeans and white t-shirt he had on were covered in dirt. It was the most unkempt and raw I’d ever seen Darius. All the sharp wit and biting sarcasm he typically wielded was gone. His eyes were hard and focused. It was unnerving as much as it was hot. Only Darius could manage to look even better covered in dirt and sweat than in one of his fancy suits. 

“My shoulders are killing me,” I said, rubbing at them.

“We need to finish or we’ll never have another chance. It's your turn in the hole. I worked for my twenty minutes. I get my break now. You two finish,” Willow replied. There was an edge to their voice. A fear that I’d never heard from them before. Today was just a day of firsts. First time I exhumed a grave, first time I committed a crime as serious as this, and the first time I’d exercised for more than 30 minutes in years.

I tightened up my grip on my shovel, then drove it deep into the dirt, pushing through the pain that doing it caused me. Willow was right. If we failed here, there would be no second chances. Dr. Maye or her help would notice the massive fucking hole we’d dug in her yard, call the police, and any hope we’d have of confirming the deaths of Maribelle and Waylon went out the window. and Madame Grace would take back her gifts, and I really, really didn’t want to find out what that meant.

“Fuck,” I cursed. “Fuck.

Darius ignored me and kept digging.

Time passed in slow motion and I once again became a body whose only purpose was to dig. Nothing else mattered. Not the pain or fear. All that mattered was that I was moving, that I was digging my shovel into the dirt, and that I was making progress.

I was broken out of my digging high when my phone started to vibrate in my pocket. I leaned on my shovel and answered. “Car?” I asked.

“We have a problem,” Annabelle said.

My stomach sank with dread. I put the phone on speaker. “Tell us,” I said.

“The conference ended early. Dr. Maye just left for her car and I can’t stop her without getting seen. "Are ya’ll done?” Annabelle asked.

“We’re still digging,” I said.

“Dig faster or leave now. You have to pick one because you have slightly more than 15 minutes before you’re fucked.”

I almost threw my thrown onto the ground and smashed it with my shovel. At least that wouldn’t be an exercise in futility.

“We’re digging,” Willow decided. “Serenity, hang up and finish."

I obeyed, then let my arms drop to my side. Were we even close? Was it even worth digging? Shouldn’t we go?

“Serenity! Dig!” Darius ordered. “We’ll do it for five more minutes and if we get nothing. We’ll go and try again later. Now dig.”

There wasn’t going to be another time. Darius had to know that. It was a convenient lie he was telling all of us, so we didn’t drop everything and run now. Even though I knew that I still clung to the words, still forced myself to believe them, and forced my shovel back into the dirt.

A minute passed in silence and I grew tenser and tenser. I could imagine Dr. Maye’s car driving down the road, getting closer and closer. It spurred me on to dig faster. Five minutes past and I was about to get out of the hole and tell everyone to stop when Darius shoved his shovel in a final time only for it to bounce off like he’d struck something hard. He prodded the ground with his shovel. I heard the noise of metal scraping against wood.

We’d hit the casket.

“Fuck yes!” he shouted. “Come on, the rest of it, more Serenity!” he shouted.

Together, we removed the thin layer of dirt off the casket and revealed the top and part of the side. Chipped paint in dull colors covered the front, and rusted metal rivets covered the front. I didn't think they had a purpose other than looking ornate. I was sure that at some point, the casket had been beautiful. That time it was over. Now it was rotted and ruined.

Darius forced his shovel into the slit where the casket opened, then bared all of his weight down on the handle. For a second, I was terrified that it wouldn’t budge. That it would be locked up too tight and we would’ve wasted all of this time for nothing. The sound of something breaking and the casket lid flying open a moment later proved me wrong. Darius fell to the ground, but I didn’t offer him a hand. I was too busy looking at the inside of the casket.

It was empty.

There wasn’t even a trace of hair or bones or even the smell of rot that I associated with dead bodies. All that was inside of the coffin was a plush blood red interior. They were alive. Somewhere out there, Maribelle and Waylon were _alive_. My hands shook. Nothing seemed real anymore.

“Figures,” Darius said. He spat on the ground. “How smug do you think they were that they pulled this off? You think their 'friends' were even real?"

“We need to go,” Willow said. They crouched down and offered me a hand.

I snapped a few pictures of the inside of the casket, then grabbed their hand and climbed out of the hole. Darius climbed out beside me. We tried to run to the fence, but our run was more like a slow shamble and the fence near the road seemed, so so far away. When we finally hit it and climbed over, I was ready to keel over and die from exhaustion.

“Where is Elise? Where the fuck is she?” Darius gasped, his hands on his knees and his shovel lying on the ground in front of him.

“Who called her?” Willow asked.

It hit me then that no one had. We’d all walked to the fence, our shovels over our shoulders, without considering the most crucial part of the plan. Getting the fuck away. I looked up the hill and almost broke down. An expensive car, one that was distinctly not Elise’s, had just broken the crest of the hill and was heading down. It was her. It was her and she was going to see us all because we didn’t remember to call Elise as soon as we were out of the hole.

“Oh fuck,” Darius cursed, his eyes wide as he stared at the car.

“Fuck,” Willow agreed.

“I’ll call Elise,” Darius said. He turned his back to the street and started tapping away on his phone. I didn’t know why he bothered. We’d fucked ourselves. There was no way out. We all too exhausted to run and the evidence of what we’d done was all over us. Dirty shovels, dirty clothes, exhausted people. There was only one conclusion you could draw.

The car slowed to a halt in front of us and idled there. I shifted my hair in front of my face and hide behind it, hoping that it and the growing dusk would conceal my face. The window rolled down and the face of Dr. Maye, an old leathery woman with white hair and a pair of grandma glasses, looked at us with disbelief. One of her hands was on the steering wheel. I couldn’t see her other. “What are you three doing in my yard?” she asked. Her eyes flicked down to our clothes, then to the shovels. “And what is all this?”

She sounded shocked, but her eyes flicked to where the Maye family cemetery and her expression darkened. She knew. There was no way she didn’t. Was she a witch too? Was she about to end us here to hide her family’s secret? I looked back at Willow and Darius for help and saw that both of them had their backs to the street and Dr. Maye. The reason why hit me too late. They were hiding their faces from Dr. Maye, and here I was, looking back at her like I’d done nothing wrong.

 _Guess I’m the spokesperson_ , I thought.

“We’re leaving. We’re not here to rob your house or anything. We’re done now,” I said. “Sorry for bothering you. We didn’t mean to,” I added as if that was going to change anything. As if I was going to be able to talk this woman into letting us leave without further complaint. If I wasn’t so tired, I might’ve been able to spin up a half-decent lie. I’m sure Annabelle could have.

Dr. Maye’s eye twitch. Her bony hand gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Sorry for bothering me? You think that’s going to cut it? I’m calling the police!” she shouted.

“Please don’t. We’re really not going to hurt you. We didn’t steal anything. I promise,” I begged.

“You’re three strange people digging up my yard, of course, I’m going to call the police!” she spat. “What do you take me for?”

“A good person?” I tried.

She laughed and shook her head. “No, I’m calling the police.”

I slung my shovel over my shoulder, turned to the hill, and started to walk away. Why not? What could she do to stop me? I’d walked away from disasters before and gotten out of shit that I shouldn’t have. There was no reason this couldn’t be different.

“Stop!” Dr. Maye shouted.

I looked at her and my blood ran cold. I started to shake again. Her other hand, the one, not death gripping the steering wheel, had a black pistol in it. A pistol she was pointing right at me. I wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. She had a gun? This old skeletal woman who looked like a stiff wind would carry her away had a fucking gun?

“I am a good person. I’m sure ya’ll are too. That’s why you shouldn’t have any problems talking to the police.” she said. “I don’t want to shoot you and I’m sure you don’t want to be shot. I think we can resolve this peacefully. If you haven’t done anything, then you can explain that to the police and we can get this sorted out. Now sit and be patient,” she ordered. She ungripped the steering wheel and took out her phone and started to dial.

Game over.

There was nothing any of us could do. I didn’t know if she would really shoot us, but I wasn’t going to take that chance. Getting shot dead by an old woman when I was filthy and tired was one of the worst ways I could think of going.

“Put your hands up,” she ordered, waving her gun at me “And turn around! Both of you!”

I put my hands up. Darius and Willow did too, but neither of them turned.”

“What part of- Oh, yes hello. Yes, I need to report an emergency. My name is Kimberly Maye and I’m being robbed right now.”

Elise’s shitbox appeared at the top of the hill. I tried my best not to stare at it. Whatever plan she and Darius had made, I wasn’t going to ruin it. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Elise’s car plunged downhill and picked up speed. She showed no signs of stopping. All at once, I put together what her and Darius’s plan was.

“Yes, yes. I have apprehended the culprits actually. All three of them. I promise they won’t be leaving soon. I’m keeping them here for you to talk to. I’m armed and I’m safe in my car. Of course, my address is…”

I wanted to look away from the crash but found it impossible. How could I when I was looking at the thing that was about to prevent me from getting arrested or killed? This batshit plan that was as likely to fuck us over even worse as it was to save us, but it was the only hope we had and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it now.

I stared at Elise’s car openly.

Dr. Maye frowned, then glanced up at her mirror. Her eyes widened in shock right as Elise plowed into the back of her car with a deafening crash. The front of Elise’s car crumpled up like a coke can. Dr. Maye’s car slid forward a foot and her head whipped forward and straight into the steering wheel.

It was all over in less than a second. The air was quiet again. Dr. Maye let out a long, agonized groan, but she didn’t lift her head from where it was wedged against her steering wheel.

“Get in!” Elise screamed.

Darius and Willow ran to her car, but I couldn’t look away from Dr. Maye. We could’ve killed her. She could’ve been dead because we sneaked into her yard and dug up her grave. Elise screamed again, but I didn’t listen. I took a step forward, intent on feeling Dr. Maye’s pulse when her body twitched like she’d been shocked. It twitched again and then she slowly turned her head to face me, her cheek pressed against the steering wheel. She gave me the most murderous expression I’d ever seen someone wear. Blood dripped down from her nose and down the wheel. She was alive though. She was okay.

That was all I needed.

I ran to Elise’s car and dived into the backseat alongside Willow. Elise started to back up. I was amazed her car was still working. She peeled away from the wreckage, cut a u-turn, and sped back up the hill, leaving Dr. Maye behind.

“We fucking did it,” I heard myself say. I turned to Willow. Adrenaline was racing through me. I felt exhilarated and terrified. I felt like I could die right then or get out of the car and run the rest of the way home. “We did it,” I repeated. My face felt numb.

“You’re shaking,” Willow said.

“I am?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I looked down at my body and saw that my hands were shaking. My legs were too. Slowly, I realized my entire body was. I hadn’t stopped since Dr. Maybe pulled her gun on me. I grabbed my necklace. It didn’t help at all.

“We’re okay. We’re out of there,” Elise said.

“Your car is fucked,” Darius said.

“It doesn’t matter, we can ditch it if we need to. We need to get back to Annabelle’s house and away from here.”

It wasn’t fine. There was no way this was going to be fine. Dr. Maye was going to recover eventually and the police and ambulance would come if they weren’t coming already. Oh fuck they might be coming now.

“Drive faster,” I croaked.

“What?”

“Fucking go! Drive!” I screamed, the emotion bursting out of me. The corner of my eyes stung. I hunched further in on myself and pressed my hand to my chest. It felt like a bomb had gone off inside of me and torn everything apart.

“Serenity calm-”

“Fuck calming down! How the fuck am I supposed to be calm!”

Willow leaned over and hugged me. I froze up. An unnatural calm forced its way past my growing hysteria. It was the same trick Madame Grace had pulled on me back in her shop and here was Willow doing the same to me.

The sounds of sirens in the distance made me hug Willow back, clinging onto them for every little bit of comfort and safety they could provide. I felt like if I let go, it’d be over. That I’d hurtle over some event horizon and lose myself.

Somehow, we made it back to Annabelle’s house and up her driveway, and parked behind Annabelle’s car without getting stopped. It was a minor miracle. Willow peeled themselves away from. Their presence allowed a fresh swell of panic and fear to bubble up, but I forced it back down and buried it deep. I couldn’t cling to them, not when I had no idea what it aw doing to them. I had to get through this myself.

“Are you okay?” They asked.

I nodded, not yet daring to speak.

“Okay.”

“What are we going to do with your car?” Darius asked. “It’s fucked up bad. You’re going to have a hard time finding a convincing lie.

“Yeah, I was thinking about that,” Elise said. “I’ve got a pretty good solution I think.”

“What is it?” Darius asked.

“Everyone out of the car first,” she ordered.

“What are you doing?”

“Get out and tell me how bad my car is first.”

We did. Darius walked around Elise’s car to the front, then let out a low whistle. “I don’t know how to evaluate how fucked up a car is, but this is pretty bad.”

“On a scale of 1 to 10 how bad is it?” Elise asked.

I pulled myself together enough to join Darius at the front of the car. He wasn’t lying when he said it was fucked up. The bumper was completely crumpled and the engine cover bent up in several places. The right front wheel looked like it’d been knocked off its axis, and fluids were starting to pool under the car and onto the concrete of the driveway.

“At least an 8,” I said.

“Alright, back up.”

The front door to the house opened and Annabelle strode out, looking like an empress about to deliver a speech. She took one look at Elise’s car, then the rest of us, then back at the car. “Someone please tell me what the fuck happened?”

“Hey, Annabelle? I’m really sorry about this,” Elise shouted. She backed up her car.

“What? What the fuck are you sorry about?”

“This!” Elise shouted, then slammed down on her gas. Annabelle’s jaw dropped as Elise rear ended the back of her car, as if she was providing a live demonstration of what she had done to Dr. Maye. Elise backed her car up again, shut it off, then stepped out and started to inspect the damage.

Annabelle lost it.

“What the _fuck_ is wrong with you! Have you lost your goddamn mind? How- why? I’m going to kill you. I’m going to-”

Elise bent over and continue to look over the damage, ignoring Annabelle’s tirade. Darius walked up the porch and stood in front of Annabelle and started to try and reason with her. Annabelle swapped to yelling at him.

I took a seat on the ground. Willow did as well. It took ten minutes for Annabelle to stop yelling and by the time she was done, Elise had stopped inspecting the cars and swapped to leaning against hers.

“Someone is going to tell me what the fuck happened. Right now. Am I understood? Right fucking now!” Annabelle demanded.

Darius launched into a play by play of what happened at the Maye state I laid down on the driveway and looked up into the night. The last vestiges of sunlight were busy being snuffed out. I felt so small laying there under the trees and clouds.

“Serenity,” Annabelle called out once Darius finished. “Did Dr. Maye really have a gun?”

“Yeah. She did,” I confirmed.

I heard her footsteps moving over the concrete, and then Annabelle’s face was above mine, looking down at me. She was scowling, but it wasn’t her typical one. There was more concern than contempt in it. “Then she deserved it. You told her you were going to leave, you didn’t have any weapons on you, and her response was to pull a gun on you. It was ya’ll or her. We’re doing something important by figuring out this Maribelle and Waylon shit. People are dying. She needed to get out of the way.”

It felt like a weak justification, but I was too tired to find where she was wrong. Accepting what she was saying made everything more manageable. Simpler. We did what we had to do. There was no need to be guilty over it. What happened had happened.

Time to move on.

“If you’re finished with your speech your highness, I’d like to go inside,” Darius said.

Annabelle offered me a hand. “Get up. We need to get everyone cleaned up and we need to figure out what’s next.”

_

The room was pitch black when the pain in my shoulders woke me up. I groped blindly for my necklaces or my bracelets until my overtired brain remembered I’d taken them off along with everyone else. They weren’t going to be able to help with the pain this time. I rubbed my eyes, then sat up and checked the time. 3:00 AM. That wasn’t so bad. I got out of bed quietly, trying not to wake up Annabelle and Darius, and trudged to the bathroom. Walking there hurt, even grabbing the painkillers and swallowing them hurt. My body wasn’t meat for digging up graves. I was so fucking sore. I felt like a piece of meat that someone had hung up and hit with a bat a hundred times. I walked to the kitchen and got a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer and tuck them on my shoulder. If I wasn’t afraid of waking everyone up, I would’ve thrown something in the microwave to have something hot to put on my aching muscles.

God, I wanted a cigarette. I craved one like nothing else. If Darius hadn’t thrown away my pack, I knew I’d be outside and smoking. Outside didn’t sound that bad right now either. Darius seemed pretty at peace when I’d found him there last Saturday and sitting in the darkness of the kitchen was oppressive anyway.

I slipped outside onto the balcony, then almost screamed when I turned and saw Willow sitting out there in the corner already, their legs pulled up to their chest. They were toying with their hair, looking out into the night.

“Hi,” they said.

“Fuck, you scared me,” I said, putting a hand over my heart.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m just jumpy after today.” I closed the door behind me, then sat down. The night was quiet and Willow didn’t make any indication they were going to keep talking.

“Willow, did you do magic on me when we were in the car today?” I asked.

“I think I did.”

I turned to them. “You think?”

“Mmhm. I don’t really understand how it works. I’ve met with Madame Grace a few times now, but I’m still confused. I’ve barely gotten anything to work. Until today. Today made sense. I didn’t want you to be upset and I remembered what Madame Grace did and tried to copy it. I think it worked.” They pulled at their hair a bit harder. “I think I get it now. I feel…it. Magic. Everywhere.”

“You do?” I asked.

They nodded. “You’re in pain? Maybe? Am I correct?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re upset.”

“Yup.”

“I can feel it,” Willow said. They touched a hand to their heart. “It’s like…smelling something. Or hearing it. I just know it’s there. I can feel it. The emotion. The magic. I know without even looking. When I touched you in the car. I knew more.”

“You knew…?”

“It! Magic! I knew it!” they said, louder this time. “I knew it,” they repeated softly.

“I…sort of understand. I think. Back at the lynching tree and with the letter, and sometimes with Madame Grace I can…I guess feel what you’re talking about. But not always. You though, you do it all the time. You’re- you’re an actual witch.”

“Maybe.”

“How do you- my emotions aren’t strong. I’m not like Madame Grace. How can you feel my emotions? How does it work?”

“I can’t explain. I just know.”

I wanted to ask more, but all my questions were secrets Madame Grace had told Willow or explanations for things that Willow couldn’t describe. I decided to let the topic drop. “How do you feel?” I asked.

“What?”

“How do you feel? I can’t just tell like you can for me,” I said.

“Tired. Stressed. Lots of things.”

"That's it?"

"Yes. That's it," Willow replied.

They went quiet. I wasn't ready to let the conversation die. I wanted to talk.

“Do you think Arif was right?” I asked.

“About what?”

“About getting involved with this. He jumped ship. Said he wasn’t going to do anything. Do you think he was right? Because after tonight I’m starting to think he was.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Willow repeated.

“Why?”

“Because this was going to happen anyway. We could’ve been casual observers, or we could be involved. That’s why Arif is wrong. Isiah will not stop. Not when Maribelle and Waylon are alive, which they are. He’s killed, people. Madame Grace thinks, and I agree, that he killed some of those people you found. She also thinks that Maribelle and Waylon are responsible for that missing woman. I think they’re responsible for all the ones. Doing nothing is letting bad things happen.”

“You’re assuming us being involved is going to change something.”

“It will do more than doing nothing.”

That still felt hollow. I didn’t dig up Maribelle and Waylon’s graves out of some sense of justice. I’d done it because Madame Grace fixed my shoulders for me. We almost killed a frail old woman today because a witch promised us favors. We could reframe it, make it easier to justify. Maybe in a more abstract sense, we were doing the right thing, but if we were, it was because we stumbled into it. Not because it was intentional.

“We almost killed her,” I said quietly.

“I don’t regret it. Do you?” Willow turned to look at me.

It wasn’t a question I wanted to think about it. No matter how wrong what we did was, I would’ve done it again. I would’ve done it ten times over.

And that was the part that made me feel like a bad person.

Willow went back inside, but I stayed out until the peas I held to my shoulder were melted. I felt better then. At least physically. The guilt could be solved by going back to sleep. I put the peas back into the freezer, then marched back to Annabelle’s room. I got back into bed, reclaiming my spot between Annabelle and Darius, and wiggled under the blankets.

“You woke me up,” Darius complained.

“Then go back to sleep,” I muttered, turning onto my side.

“Mmkay,” he said, then slung an arm over my waist and pulled me into his chest. I froze up. We’d cuddled a few times now, but we hadn't fallen asleep like that. This felt like an escalation. I was going to fall asleep in someone else's arm. Holy shit.

“Sleep,” Darius said.

“Okay.”

“If you two don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to make you sleep outside my door,” Annabelle said.

“Your k-pop idols will never hold you at night Annabelle. You can’t replace us like that,” Darius teased.

I couldn’t prevent a burst of laughter from coming out. Annabelle sat up in bed, then flicked on her lamp, illuminating her room. No matter how many times I saw it, it was still weird to me. She such an acidic person, but her blankets were all pinks and lavenders. Her walls were covered with posters of k-pop idols and even a few anime ones. I’d always known she was into that stuff, but I underestimated just how interested she was.

“Why’d you turn on the light?” Darius groaned.

“To piss you off.”

I buried my head into my pillow. “Weren’t we going to sleep?” I mumbled.

“Well you ruined that for me and I figure that if we’re going to go back to sleep, we should start on the same page again,” Annabelle replied.

“Suburb logic,” Darius snarked.

Annabelle shut the lamp off, then pressed her back against my chest. “Serenity, put your arm over me.”

I listened. How could I not? I was laying in Annabelle's’ bed in Annabelle’s house. Obviously, I was going to listen to her. She wore silk pajamas, and it was nice to run my fingers over them. I would have rather done it to her skin, but if I did that, Annabelle was going to bitch at me for not letting her sleep. That and she didn’t tell me I should or that I could and it was much better to be careful than reckless here.

“Good job. Now we’re all going to go the fuck to sleep okay? Okay.”


	12. Everything That Rises - 2.2

By the time the sun had set on Tuesday, I had 18 missed calls and a litany of texts from my mom demanding to know why the police showed up at her door to ask about me and what I’d been doing last night. Looking at them made my chest tighten up. The police were moving fast. I’d thought it would take days for them to start poking around, but it hadn’t even been 24 hours and they were moving. It made me think that Dr. Maye had more to do with Maribelle and Waylon than I first thought.

Compared to the police coming after me, my mom was a minor problem, but a problem nonetheless. There was no way what she’d told the police had done me any favors. It was a good thing we hadn’t talked since I’d left her house. I’d been following Annabelle’s order for everyone to “shut the fuck up and don’t say shit unless you have to” before she’d even thought to mandate it. I hoped we would never get to the “have to” part of that order. Our story was simple and we would all vouch for one another, but that didn’t make me any keener to test it out.

“Trouble in paradise?” Darius asked, nudging my arm.

“The same thing as before,” I replied, putting my phone away.

“It’s fine. They can look all they want, they’re not going to find shit,” Annabelle said.

“I hope they don’t ask though. My family is already really suspicious,” Elise said.

“I told you we should’ve used a different garage,” Annabelle complained.

“That was never going to happen. It’d look even worse if we didn’t go to them. Besides, like this, you’re only paying for parts, and I know for sure that my parents won’t say shit if the police come around. They don’t trust them.”

“Yeah, I’m sure It’ll be fine,” Darius said smoothly. “Maribelle, Waylon, and Isiah have done worse things and gotten away with it. We’re going to be just fine.”

“They’re witches,” Willow pointed out.

“Aren’t you one too?” he replied.

“Focus,” Annabelle ordered. “You can bicker after our meeting.”

“Oh, so you can bicker whenever you want, but when I do it, it’s bad? Some double standard you’ve got there. The injustice of it. I’m going to keep bickering as protest,” Darius deadpanned.

“Fuck off Darius.”

“An amazing riposte. How can I go on?”

Darius and Annabelle's argument helped soothe some of my anxiety, but not by much. The sight of Madame Grace’s shop ahead of us, tucked away and looking as innocent as always, made me want to walk the other way and not look back. It made no sense. We’d succeeded on our task, we hadn’t gotten caught, and now we could wash our hands of everything that came after. All we had to do was walk in, tell Madame Grace what happened, then leave.

I had a strong, sinking feeling that wasn’t how our meeting would go. Fucking anxiety. No matter how much I breathed and tried to steady myself, my body refused to believe I wasn’t under imminent threat. That invisible pain in my shoulders and all the soreness of my muscles weren’t doing me any favors in that department either. I’d rather have been under imminent threat than this. At least then there was something I could do. Now more than ever, I wished I had one of Madame Grace’s necklaces to hold on to. I hadn’t realized how much of my anxiety they’d cut down on until I went through a day without them.

Which was what I was scared would happen.

I was becoming addicted to the soothing feel of Madame Grace’s jewelry, and if she leveraged that over me to try and get me to do more errands, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to say no. I looked at the box of our old jewelry tucked under Willow’s arm and wondered if I should’ve kept a few pieces to myself. If I could figure out how to get rid of any emotion they absorbed, I wouldn’t need Madame Grace.

 _That would mean learning magic though, which would only be digging the hole deeper,_ I thought.

The box rattled as Willow walked. I thought about much raw power was contained within it. Madame Grace had performed literal miracles with whatever emotion her jewelry had sucked up before, and now we were returning it good as new. She’d gotten one over on us in every conceivable way.

Willow might not have been so wrong to want to learn how magic worked.

“Let me talk first,” Willow reminded us as we approached the door.

“Have at it,” Annabelle replied.

We entered the shop.

Madame Grace sat at her table, toying with a deck of tarot cards. Her typical excess of candles burned around her, and she had a few old, dog eared books stacked up next to her on the table. She looked up at us and smiled. “I’m glad to see ya’ll are doing well. Am I to assume your errand was a success?”

Willow set the box of jewelry down on the table, then pulled out a chair and sat across from Madame Grace. The rest of us hung back by the door.

“Nervous?” Madame Grace asked, eying the four of us. She toyed with her bracelets. “Can I offer you something?”

“There were no bodies in Maribelle and Waylon’s coffin,” Willow said, bringing Madame Grace’s attention back to them. “They’re out there somewhere.”

“I’m not surprised to hear that, but I am surprised they’ve cheated death so well. I don’t know many who’ve done that.” Madame Grace picked up her deck and started to shuffle. “Oh well, they’re still human no matter how old they are.”

“Humans don’t live that long,” Willow said.

“Yes, but they are human all the same. If they have bodies, it means they can still be killed. That’s all.”

“You’re going to kill them?” Willow asked.

“Your errand was purely exploratory in nature. I am currently undecided on my next course of action.” She swept her eyes back over to our group by the door. “Are ya’ll?”

“Are you offering us another job boss?” Darius asked in what might’ve been the worst attempted Italian accent I’d ever heard.

“It’s a possibility,” Madame Grace said, ignoring Darius’s stupid voice. “Have you made a choice?”

Annabelle started to speak, but Darius tapped her on the arm and gestured towards Willow. Annabelle huffed and crossed her arms, but didn’t say anything.

Willow fidgeted in their chair. “You said our contract was as needed right? We could end our relationship now with no problems?”

“Correct.”

Willow looked back at us. “We can stop then. If ya’ll want.”

It would’ve been the smart thing to do, but Willow was still sitting at the table, their legs crossed under it, and they didn’t seem to have any intention of getting up.

“Before we say yes or no, I want to make sure we’re all clear. If we take more jobs for you, we’re getting involved in a three way war for Hope between you, Isiah, and Maribelle and Waylon, right?” Elise asked.

“War is a rather strong word to put to it,” Madame Grace said.

“What would you call it then?” Annabelle asked. “People are dying and we just dug up a grave to get you some information. It seems like a war to me.”

“You’re training me too, aren’t you?” Willow asked.

Madame Grace clicked her tongue and shook her head. “To be my soldier? No. Your will is your own. What you do with my teachings is up to you.”

“C’mon, it’s a war,” Darius grinned. “You can just say it. We’re not gonna be offended. We promise.”

“War is overly dramatic, but if you insist on the term, then yes, if you three helped me further, you would be getting involved in a ‘war.’

“So what do you get out of this war? What’s your angle?” I asked.

“Would you believe me if I told you the answer was power?” Madame Grace replied.

“You already have that,” Willow said.

“I have a type of power, but it’s never bad to expand one’s options.”

That still seemed like a non-answer. “What kind of power do you want then?” I asked.

“Any kind I get.”

“You’re not going to tell us more, are you?” Darius questioned.

“If this is a war, then ya’ll are mercenaries, and mercenaries are informed on a need to know basis.” Madame Grace said.

Annabelle scowled. “Well there is a lot we need to-”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” a man with a thick Southern drawl purred from outside the door, interrupting Annabelle.

The door swung open behind us, and three men, all of them tall and broad with dark skin, pushed their way into the shop without a word. They were all dressed in the same overalls, gray undershirt, and heavy brown work boots. Two of them had very familiar looking dirt streaked shovels slung over their shoulders. They took up position on either side of the door, moving in near sync. It should’ve been graceful, but there was something jerky and unnatural about their movements like they were puppets being pulled around on strings. The third man stopped and stood between his two friends and gave the room a long, slow once over, then retreated back outside. A second later, he was replaced by a new man carrying the last of the shovels Darius and Annabelle had bought.

I recognized him instantly.

I’d caught little glimpses of him talking to Bishop right before or right after Bishop’s sermons. It was impossible to mistake him for someone. He was simply unforgettable. He looked more marble sculpture than man. His muscles were too well defined, his eyes sharp, his peach colored skin too flawless. There wasn’t a single hair out of place on his head and what little stubble he had on his face almost looked like it had been photoshopped onto his face. He walked with precise steps, never a wasted movement, like a big cat on the prowl. He dressed like Darius if Darius was stuck in the past. Tight fitting gray pants led to a brown vest with a white undershirt, a bow tie, and a well fitting suit jacket. A comically oversized black top hat sat on top of his head.

“I’m glad I’ve caught ya’ll all together. This is really quite convenient,” he remarked with a broad, predatory smile. “I really do apologize if I’m interrupting. It's terribly rude of me. If I or any of these boys get some dirt on your floor, let me know. We’ll sweep it up for you,” he assured.

The longer he was in the room, the more uncomfortable his presence became. He radiated malice and bad intentions like he was a microcosm of the sort of emotions that ruled over Hope. I couldn’t stop staring at the shovels he and his friends carried. He had to know they were ours. Why else would he be in Madame Grace’s shop?

“Who the fuck are you?” Annabelle asked, giving the man her harshest glare.

“Of course, more rudeness, I do apologize. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joseph. I’m pleased to meet your acquaintance,” he said with a bow. “And who are ya’ll?”

“Who are those two?” Darius asked, gesturing to the men by the door. They stared ahead like they weren’t even aware they were being talked about. Their eyes were empty and vacant.

“That’s Jeb and Noah,” Joseph said. “They don’t talk much. A bit shy I’m afraid, but they’re very excited to be here. Now please, tell me who ya’ll are.”

No one spoke. We were a unified front of silence. At least everyone remembered the part of the plan where we shut the fuck up.

“Not going to answer then? Nothing?” Joseph pushed. “Come now, I gave you my name, it’s only polite.”

“What brings you to my shop?” Madame Grace called out. She was still idling flicking through her deck of tarot cards. Every now and then, she’d draw one and set it face up on the table, only to scoop it back up and shuffle it in a second later. She looked completely relaxed, like three men breaking into her shops with shovels was a regular, expected occurrence.

“I’m here to ask some questions and clear the air after some… unfortunate events. You see, a group of criminals dug up a family friend’s grave yesterday and stole away their bodies. They obviously have no respect for the dead or the past. No respect at all.” He shook his head, then turned to the four of us. “Ya’ll agree I’m sure.” His eyes bored into us. It felt like he was seeing straight into my soul. It was the same sort of look Madame Grace had when she gave me my fortune. He knew more than he should’ve, saw more than was possible.

He was a witch.

“A shame. My condolences to the family,” Madame Grace said, once again drawing his attention away from us. I’d have to thank her later. I’d rather talk to Madame Grace 100 times than Joseph once. “Who is the family If you don’t mind my asking.”

“The Maye family. A prestigious group of medical experts who have been in Hope for generations,” Joseph explained, still looking at us. “You see, the family is very interested in finding out who exactly committed this senseless and pointless crime. They’d like to see justice served. Whoever did this needs to be punished to the highest degree possible.” His eyes narrowed, but his smile remained. He let his threat linger for a bit, before finally looking back to Madame Grace. “They want to know why they did it too. Their motivations. The current suspects are all young ’uns. Strange for them to be digging up graves, don’t you think? Why would they go and do a thing like that?”

“Very strange. The young people really do get worse every year,” Madame Grace remarked.

“Exactly. I’m glad you understand. This whole incident reeks of a lack of respect and mystery,” Joseph said. He walked over to the table and yanked out a chair, then sat down right next to Willow. To their credit, they didn’t flinch. Joseph leaned across the table and smiled at Madame Grace. “Now, who might you be Miss? I don’t think I caught your name?”

“Madame Grace.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Grace. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions? I think you could be very useful for solving this little mystery.”

It wasn’t a request, but Madame Grace didn’t seem intimidated. She met Joseph’s eyes, and then I felt a new emotion rising in the air. One of raw stubbornness and rebuke. She was challenging him. Their magic spilled out into the air until every last atom in the room was suffused with Madame Grace’s power or Joseph’s. They were in a deadlock. It was hard to breathe. I wanted to step outside, but Joseph’s men blocked any retreat. We were trapped.

“I’m working right now, I’ll need compensation,” Madame Grace said. “My rates are 40$ per reading or 100$ an hour if you’d like to sit and talk. Which would you prefer?”

“You want me to pay?” Joseph asked. He sounded surprised.

“Of course. My time is valuable and as I said, I am at work. You can pay or you can leave. It’s your choice.”

The fake smile Joseph had plastered onto his face since he walked in dropped. “Maybe I haven’t made myself clear. The Maye family is deeply offended by what happened to their kin yesterday and they _will_ see justice. I’m here to ensure that said justice is served swiftly, righteously, and to the persons responsible for this crime. Surely you can spare some time for a family trying to assist their kin.”

“When I tried to help my kin, the only people who would help us was us. It was difficult, but we persevered and solved our problems all on our lonesome. I found it built character. I believe the same principle applies here. Now again, my rates are 40$ per reading or $100 per hour. If you don’t plan on paying, I’ll have to ask you to leave. I don’t work for free.”

Madame Grace was winning their silent war. Her magic was steadily replacing Joseph’s own, forcing it back. Joseph must’ve known a losing battle when he saw one and gave up. His magic faded from the air as quickly as it filled it. He leaned back in his chair, then looked at Willow and then the rest of us.

“Is there a group rate or did each of them pay for the privilege of your time?” he asked.

“I assure you, all of them paid for the privilege to speak to me.”

“What if I wanted to ask them questions?” Joseph asked.

“They are free to answer if they’d like, but if you’d like to talk to them, you’ll have to do it outside of my shop.”

Joseph nodded slowly, then stood up and looked back at us and grinned. “I’ll wait outside for ya’ll to be done. I hope ya’ll will be less uppity then this woman here,” he said, flicking his wrist towards Madame Grace. He strode out the door and snapped his fingers. “Come now, let’s go,” he commanded. There was an unnatural push to his words. His magic cut through Madame Grace’s own for a split second. I took a step forward before I caught myself. His two guards at the door jerked forward, then ambled out the door like zombies. One of them slammed the door shut behind him.

“It seems I’ve poked a sleeping bear,” Madame Grace mused.

“Who the fuck is he?” Annabelle asked. “Does anyone know him?”

I swallowed. “Yeah. I’ve seen him before. Talking to Bishop at Hope First.”

“My parents have mentioned someone like that I think,” Elise said. “A weird looking guy talking to Father John before and after mass.”

“He’s going to kill us,” Willow said. I didn’t know who they were talking to. Maybe to all of us. They were saying what we all thinking but were too scared to voice. At least for Annabelle, Elise, and I. Darius was tense, but he didn’t seem scared. Instead, he looked ready to fight.

“No, he’s not, I’m not dying today. None of us are, fuck that,” Annabelle said. She stalked over to the table and jabbed a finger at Madame Grace. “You got us into this mess, you have to help us out of it.”

“Now that’s not true. You took my errand and I can only assume you were aware of what difficulties could befall you if you did. I paid you for your work. I don’t owe you anything as is.” She folded her hands. “Now, if we were to make another deal, then I would owe you.”

“Wait, wait, wait, let’s slow down,” Darius said. “To be totally clear, you’re going to let Joseph and the goon squad bash our skulls in if we don’t help you? Am I getting that right?” Darius asked.

“He only said he wanted to talk to you,” Madame Grace objected.

“How do you think that talk will go? You think he’s going to give us some life advice, a cigarette, and a pat on the back?”

“No. Truthfully, I suspect it will go poorly. If I were you, I wouldn’t go out there without a plan.”

I dragged my hands down my face. This was it. We were officially fucked. Some random witch had walked in and given Madame Grace the exact leverage she needed over us. There was nothing else we could do.

“Alright, tell us what you could theoretically do for us. Let’s negotiate,” Elise said.

“You’re considering this shit? It’s blatant blackmail. She’s going to let us die if we don’t help her,” Annabelle said.

“You’re attempting to guilt trip me,” Madame Grace replied. “I’ll remind you that I already paid you for your first errand, and as I told Joseph, I don’t work for free.”

Annabelle seethed, but she knew when she was caught just as well as the rest of us did. She paced around the room, then settled for wedging herself in the corner behind Darius. Madame Grace drew a card from her deck and placed it on the table. It depicted a grim reaper of some sort.

“Change is coming,” Darius said quietly. “Okay, we’ll negotiate. Any objections?” he asked.

“I was going to make another deal anyway. This is fine,” Willow said.

“She’s got us by the tits. We don’t have a choice,” Annabelle spat.

“Let’s hear it then,” I sighed.

“Wonderful,” Madame Grace said. She went behind the curtain, then came out with a small wooden box, set it on the table, and opened it. Inside there were six large brass bracelets. They were scratched and battered with age, but something about them was enthralling. It was like I was looking at the most interesting thing in the world. Everything inside of me wanted to take all six of them and slide them onto my wrists. I reached out to do just that, but then Madame Grace slammed the box shut, breaking the spell.

“You’ll need protection to proceed. Joseph won’t give up his attempts at conversation and it is reasonable to fear that he will attempt to kill you if you do not cooperate. These will help.”

“What do they do?” Annabelle asked.

“I think you can-”

“Tell us,” Willow commanded. “I don’t want to die and if this is our protection, then I want to know exactly how they will protect us.”

“No more guessing,” Elise agreed. “I think I know where this is going, but I need to hear you say it.”

Madame Grace sighed and shook her head.

“I know. They have no appreciation for drama. They’d make for terrible actors,” Darius said.

Annabelle elbowed him. “Not the time asshole.”

“It’s always the time.”

Madame Grace snickered, then schooled her expression back into something serious. “These bracelets as you can tell, attract attention. People will notice you more. All eyes will be on you.”

“How does that help us?” I asked.

“Because if all eyes are on you, it hard to disappear. People will ask where you went and try to find you. If you get into a fight and people notice ya’ll, they will gravitate towards you. It will be very hard to get you alone if you are in public.”

“Why would Joseph care? He’s walking around downtown with dirty shovels and looks like a supermodel. I don’t think he gives a shit about maintaining an image,” Darius said.

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve known men like him before. Image and perception are all that matters to him,” Madame Grace replied.

“Ouch,” Darius intoned.

Madame Grace ignored him. “If he attempts to attack you and you call for help, someone will hear you and come to your aid. Ideally. These aren’t a panacea, but they will prevent you from vanishing like so many others have in the past.”

“Not dying sounds good, but I already have people staring at me whenever I got anywhere. I don’t need more of it,” I said.

“Agreed,” Willow said.

“It’s the best defense against your enemies.”

“Well, you’re going to need to do better, because this is a shitty fucking solution that’s going to cause just as many problems as it fixes. The police are after me right now. If I put this on, it’s going to make the scrutiny even worse,” I said.

“If I’m too offer more then you will need to offer more as well,” Madame Grace insisted.

“What do you want us to do for the bracelets in the first place?” Willow asked.

“I would like to establish contact with Isiah. Three of you have already met him. I believe you could do it again.”

“Just bracelets for that? Give us more,” I demanded.

“What do you desire?”

A hundred possibilities bounced around my head, but none of them were realistic and none of them would help. “Just something,” I said helplessly.

“We want a way to defend ourselves so we’re not running back to you to fix all of our problems and getting ourselves deeper into this fucking bullshit.” Annabelle peeled herself out from the corner and took a seat. Her confidence was back. She had a plan. “You need us. As much as you’re posturing right now, you can’t win this fight alone. That’s why you want Isiah and that’s why you’re trying to drag us back in even though we don’t know shit about magic.”

“I know about magic,” Willow objected.

“Besides Willow. Serenity is right about the bracelets too. They’re going to hurt just as much as they’ll help. We need more.”

“Something to defend yourself with,” Madame Grace repeated. They tapped their fingers in a wave on the table. “What do you have in mind for that.”

“Teach us magic,” Elise said.

“Okay, not where I thought we were going with this,” Darius said. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Magic. That’s what we’re going with? Are we all good with that? Because I’m not so sure I’m good with that.”

“I’m good with it,” Willow chimed in.

“We know you are.”

“What else do we defend ourselves with Darius? You have any ideas?” Elise asked.

“We could shoot him. Guns still work.”

That was…actually not a bad idea. Pondering murder as a solution to our problem wasn’t something I’d ever thought I’d be doing, but I could accept the reality that was put in front of me. I didn’t know much about Joseph, but all of his talk about punishing criminals, and the fact that he was working for Maribelle and Waylon, made me all but certain he wasn’t going to leave us alone.

“Are you gonna do it? You’d shoot him?” Annabelle asked.

“Yup.”

There wasn’t an ounce of sympathy or doubt in Darius’s voice and didn’t seem nervous about the idea in the slightest. There was no way that was normal. Normal people didn’t talk about shooting people that easily. Normal people didn’t sound like they’d be totally okay with it.

 _You’re not normal either though, are you?_ I thought. _Joseph would kill you first. He’s offering to protect you. To protect everyone._

“I’m- I’m okay with that,” I said.

“You are? We’re okay with killing people now? When the fuck did that happen?” Annabelle asked.

“Yeah, I’m not so sure I want to jump straight to murder. That’s not…my thing,” Elise agreed.

“I’m all for other ideas, but if he’s trying to kill us, then it’s self-defense anyway. I don’t think I’ll take any joy in killing him if it comes to it, but it would be the easiest fix,” Darius argued.

“Killing him would be justified. I agree with Darius and Serenity.”

“Good thing we’re not doing majority rule on fucking murder,” Annabelle hissed. “He hasn’t even done anything yet. What the hell has got you all so murder happy?”

“Come on, you don’t seriously think we’re just going to talk,” Darius said.

“Shooting Joseph is more complicated than ya’ll are considering,” Madame Grace said. “You don’t know anything about him. Neither do I. You don’t know where to look or how prepared he is, or if he carries around a gun himself. You don’t have a gun now anyway, and as far as I understand, you’re not old enough to buy one, are you?”

“There are ways around that,” Darius said.

“That’s not the problem. The problem is killing him to begin with,” Annabelle said.

“I’m simply stating that shooting him on sight is not the greatest defensive plan,” Madame Grace said. “It’s possible he can be reasoned with as well. As I said, I’m undecided on my current course of action.”

Darius spread out his arms and gave Madame Grace an incredulous look. “He’s not going to talk to us. He’s going to wait for us to tell us what he wants to hear, then ‘punish us to the highest degree.’ You heard him.”

Elise wrapped her fingers on the table and sighed. “If we knew magic, we could protect ourselves without having to kill anyone,” Elise said.

Annabelle went silent, then asked, “What would you want in exchange for teaching us magic? Let’s start there.”

Madame Grace closed her eyes and thought. We all watched her silence. Whatever she was going to come up with was going to bad, I knew that much. The only question I had was how bad.

“If I were to teach you, all of you, my terms would be as follows. One, you continue to wear my jewelry and return it as you’ve been doing. Two, you help me wrest control of Hope. Third, you leave when this ‘war’ is over and not come back.”

The only part of the proposal I had an issue with was her second demand. I was already planning on leaving Hope, and continuing to wear her jewelry was more helpful than harmful. Helping her wrest control of Hope stood as the most difficult, dangerous, and shitty thing we’d have to do, but it was better than dying. We were de-facto on Madame Grace’s side anyway. Joseph sure as fuck didn’t seem like he was going to leave us alone and Maribelle and Waylon sure as fuck weren’t going to let us join their side after we’d dug up their grave. Isiah didn’t seem like the type to welcome us with open arms either.

All in all, it wasn’t that bad.

“That’s fucking bullshit!” Annabelle exploded. “You want us to fight your war for you and then kick us the fuck out when you win. You just don’t want competition!”

“Correct. If I teach you, you are competition. An unknown factor that I have to account for. It will be better for all of us if you leave when this is over.”

“I can live with that,” I spoke up.

Annabelle whirled around to face me. “You can?”

“Yup.”

“You don’t have anywhere to go. No plan. You can’t just leave,” Annabelle accused. “What if we finish this in the middle of the semester? Are you just going to drop out and leave?”

“I was going to say something like that,” Elise said. “If we agree, then you have to give a six month grace period to sort our shit out. We can’t bail as soon as we're done.”

“Then ya’ll have to swear to not plot against me and keep meeting me during that time.”

“Deal.”

“No, no I didn’t agree to his. I live here. My house is here. Where am I going to go?” Annabelle asked.

“You want to stay here for the rest of your life?” I replied.

“I never said that.”

“If you’re going to move, then now is a good time to do it. You can go to school somewhere else. Somewhere that isn’t shitty. Your parents won’t care. You know they won’t. It’ll be fine,” I said.

“I don’t care! I don’t want to go!” Annabelle shouted. Her chest heaved. Her eyes were wild and I’d never see her so scared. I’d hit a nerve without realizing it.

“Hey, relax,” Darius said. He walked over rubbed Annabelle’s back. “We could go somewhere together. The three of us. It’s not like you’d be alone.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to leave.”

“You will leave, or I won’t teach you,” Madame Grace replied. “My terms are final. This is the best deal you will ever get in your life. Ya’ll aren’t even aware of how good it is. I will not make further concessions. Take the deal or leave it.”

“No,” Willow said. “My deal was to be taught magic. If everyone else is to learn now, then I am losing out on my reward for my first task. I want another. You have to make another concession for me.”

Madame Grace toyed with one of her necklaces, the nodded. “Yes, that would be fair. What would you like?”

“I’ll decide by this Sunday.”

“Good. Have you decided what you want?” Madame Grace asked Elise. “I still owe you payment.”

“I’m saving it still.”

“As you wish,” Madame Grace said. “Now, Annabelle, do you still object to my deal? It sounds like your friends have decided.”

Annabelle shuffled around in her chair, then met my eyes. I had no idea what to do. She was searching for something, but even if I knew what it was, I wasn’t sure I could give it to her. I couldn’t say nothing though, so I forced a smile and let the first words I thought of tumble out of my mouth. “Even if you don’t leave with me and Darius, you can still go somewhere else. Fuck Hope.”

Annabelle looked down at the table. A deafening, near painful silence, filled the room. I wished she would say something. Get mad, scream, anything but make that sad, pained face like someone had forced her deepest secrets out of her on the threat of death.

“Fine. I agree. I’ll leave,” she said, looking up and meeting Madame Grace’s eyes. “But I want to come back and visit. I’m not staying away forever.”

“I was going to say the same,” Elise said. “My family is here. I’m not going to abandon them like that. I want to come back. Not for too long, but for holidays and stuff.”

Madame Grace sighed. “So long as you stay no longer than two weeks. If you want to stay for longer, you have to meet me, just like you will have to do in your six month grace period."

“Sure. That works for me,” Elise said. She looked at us. “Ya’ll good?”

Everyone was except for Annabelle, whose scowl was deeply ingrained in their face that it looked as if it was frozen there. She met Madame Grace’s eyes and held them for a long minute then looked out the door. “Fine. Deal.”

“No more objections?” Madame Grace asked.

“One last thing, what are we going to tell Arif?” Darius asked. He looked at the box of bracelets. “Because I’m not going to let him walk around defenseless. If we do this, then I’m going to give one of those bracelets to him and tell him the deal we made here today.”

“Why? Why does he have to know?” Annabelle groaned.

“Because he’s my friend and he’s connected to us, which means he’s in danger. He’s helped me out of some tough spots before. I have to have his back.”

“We want less attention on him, not more,” Elise said. “Giving him a bracelet is going to make him more noticeable. We want him in the background so he doesn’t get hurt.”

“Then he needs a different defense. No matter what, he’s getting something.”

“He’s not a part of the deal,” Madame Grace replied.

“If he doesn’t get anything, then I’m not agreeing.”

Madame Grace smiled. “A hard bargain, but as you wish. As a show of good faith, I’ll honor your request and do my best to protect him. So long as he does not mix himself up in our affairs, he should be safe. Now, was that the final objection?”

Everyone was silent.

“Wonderful,” Madame Grace purred.

Darius cracked his knuckles. “Alright, that settles it then. Break out the contract. I’ll sign it in blood if I have to. Let’s do this.”

Madame Grace went behind their curtain and returned with the same worn notebook as before. She quickly wrote up our deal, then pushed the notebook over the table for us to sign. Her signature was already at the bottom of the page. “Please sign,” she said, holding out her pen for someone to take.

We all signed it, one after the other. Madame Grace hummed while we did. I wished I could read her mind. Was she only making the deal with us because we were her last result? Did she not have any better options? It was the only logical explanation I could come up with, but Madame Grace didn’t look desperate in the slightest.

She looked, very, very pleased.

Madame Grace dragged the leather notebook back to her side of the table, then set it to the side and allowed the ink to dry. She replaced it with the small box of bracelets and opened it again. “Take one. All of you,” she said.

Annabelle’s hand dipped into the box immediately. She came out with the bracelet dangling over her wrist like an oversized sleeve. The bracelet itself almost seemed tacky now, but Annabelle— Annabelle was gorgeous. Nothing about her changed, but the usual draw I had to her magnified times a thousand. I wanted to reach across the table and touch her.

Darius reached into the box and slid on a bracelet, followed by Elise, Willow, and then me. We all looked at one another with a mix of fascination, horror, and barely disguised interest. Christ, we were going to walk around with these? I was going to draw that much attention to myself? I could barely handle the way Willow and Elise kept sneaking glances at me and then-

Then there was Darius and Annabelle.

They kept looking at me, then each other, then back to me with darkened eyes. I had to look away. They were too beautiful, and I felt too _seen_. It was like the first time I’d worn a dress out in public all over again. Even though their eyes weren’t harsh and judgmental, I still wanted to melt into the floor.

“You’ll get used to it, as people do with everything,” Madame Grace assured, clearly noticing my distress. “The people around you will too. The bracelets’ beauty, like all things, will fade.”

“Will it ever come back?” Willow asked.

“Given the right emotions, yes.”

“How long will they last while we wear them then? A month? Two? A time frame to know how long we’ll be safe would be nice,” Elise said.

“I couldn’t say. It depends on how much attention you gather and how fast,” Madame Grace replied.

“So should we be trying to get as much or as little as possible?” Darius asked.

“I couldn’t say.”

“You- do you know anything about them?” Annabelle demanded.

Madame Grace started to pull jewelry from off her body and piled it in the center of the table. “There is no one way they ‘work,’ just as there are no one way emotions works. It always depends. You could have a meteoric rise to notoriety and find your bracelets useless. You could gather small bits of attention everywhere you go and have them last for ages. Perhaps you could achieve notoriety and have no one ever become so used to you the bracelets become weaker. There are hundreds of possibilities,” Madame Grace explained. She continued to strip off jewelry. The pile it went into it was starting to become pretty big.

“Are there any rules to this at all?” I asked.

Madame Grace stopped taking off jewelry and settled back in her chair. “Magic is what you can imagine being fueled by what you feel. Does that have any rules?”

“Basic psychology exists, so yes,” Elise answered.

“We do think in similar ways, don’t we? That’s as good of a place to start as any.” She waved towards the pile of jewelry. “Each of you take some. I will give you your first lesson now. I’m sure none of you mind making our guest outside wait.”

_

Magic was complete and utter bullshit.

Listening to Madame Grace speak was like being an intro to psych class, but even more confusing. Madame Grace didn’t speak in absolutes. She leaned on her ‘maybes’ her ‘probablies’ and ‘I thinks.’ Even the myriad of ways you could kill yourself doing magic were obscure. You might accidentally burn through all your emotions and end up as an empty husk or maybe you’d be totally fine. You could lose your sense of self by drawing too heavily on the emotions of other people, or it could work out perfectly and have no issues. You could have such an active imagination that you barely needed emotion for magic, or you might have so much emotion that you barely needed any imagination.

No rules, nothing solid.

It was frustrating as fuck

By the end of her lesson, I was hopelessly lost, but at least I wasn’t alone in that. Both Darius and Annabelle seemed just as confused as me. Willow seemed to understand, a bit better, but even their head seemed to be a bit in the clouds. Elise seemed like she understood it perfectly well for the first half of the lesson, but by the end of it, she was frowning hard, looking like the bust of one an ancient Greek philosopher in deep contemplation.

“Any questions?” Madame Grace asked, wrapping up her lecture.

A million, but I didn’t have the words to ask a single one of them, so I didn’t even try.

Darius raised his hand then asked, “Is there going to be a practical side to this course, or is it all theory?”

“You won’t be doing any magic tonight. Going outside distracted isn’t something I’d force you to do.”

“He’s really still out there?” I asked, looking at the door.

Madame Grace rose from her chair and rounded the table, heading towards the door. “Let’s find out.”

Annabelle screamed out her chair. “Stop! What the fuck are you doing!” she shouted, trying to reach out and grab Madame Grace. Madame Grace dodged around her outstretched hand, then tugged her door open.

Joseph was still there.

He and his men sat on the curb, smoking cigarettes and passing around a flask. Joseph looked back at the door, then rose to his feet. “I’m on public property. You can’t force me to leave.”

“I had no plans on it,” Madame Grace said. She grabbed her cane from where it was leaning against the door and stepped outside. “Come children,” she called out.

Why was she doing this? What the fuck was she thinking. We could’ve slipped through the back and hopped over the dumpsters to freedom. Madame Grace could’ve provided a distraction while we did it, but here she was showing Joseph that we all still there and waiting.

“She’s gathering attention. Let’s go,” Annabelle said. She flicked her hair over her shoulder, then strode out the door and took up position beside Madame Grace. She looked back at us with a harsh glare, then jabbed a finger at the ground beside her. The message was clear.

“Here we go,” Darius said, standing and following. The rest of us trailed behind him. Willow shut the door, and then the five of us took up position around Madame Grace. It felt incredibly dramatic, but Joseph and Madame Grace were taking it deadly seriously. I tried to make myself as intimidating as possible, but all it did was make me feel ridiculous.

Across the street, two young guys trickled out of a bar. They stopped when they saw us, traded a few words with one another, then continued to look on in confusion. What Annabelle said about gathering attention finally clicked. Madame Grace looked away from Joseph, saw the guys across the street, then took a step back towards her shop.

“Ya’ll hurry home. It’s late,” Madame Grace said before she turned on her and strutted back into her shop. I heard the lock on the door turn with a deafening click.

Joesph frowned, then looked over his shoulder. When he saw the two guys watching and keeping pace with us, he sighed. “I’m starting to think you don’t trust me. All I want to do is have a conversation.”

“We’re not interested,” Annabelle replied, then started to walk down the sidewalk. “Come on, we’re leaving,” she called out behind her.

We followed, sticking together as a close group. Annabelle kept her eyes forward and pretended like Joseph and his men weren’t right there, walking parallel to us on the street. Across the street, the guys were keeping pace too.

“I’d say you were ignoring me due to my…impropriety earlier, but I’ve waited for an hour outside of that shop just to talk to ya’ll. Don’t you think I’m owed a conversation? It’s extremely uncouth to ignore me like this,” he drawled. There was a dangerous edge to his voice. That same aura of malice and intimidation radiated off of him. One of the men walked ahead of us while the other dropped back. The third kept pace with Joseph. They were hemming us in against the line of bars and stores to our right.

Fuck, where were all the people tonight? I knew 2 AM on a Tuesday wasn’t prime partying hours, but I expected more than just the guys across the street to be here. Had Joseph scared them all off so there would be fewer people around to talk to us?

“I don’t care,” Willow said.

“Exactly. We don’t give a fuck. Go cry somewhere else,” Annabelle sniped.

Joseph’s face darkened. We walked faster. So did he.

“The silent treatment won’t work on me. I’m a very persistent man. Very persistent. If you think I’m going to let you leave before we’ve had that conversation, you’re sorely mistaken. Even if you didn’t owe it to Hope to bring these criminals to justice, you’d owe it to me for making me wait so long. So why don’t we talk?”

“No,” Willow intoned

Joseph's footsteps turned into heavy stomps. Little pieces of rocks and pebbles flew through the air. A few hit my legs. “I can taste your fear. Ya’ll do a very poor job of hiding it. Which makes me want to know why. There is nothing scary about a talk,”

“Really makes you think,” Darius said.

Joseph was breathing harder. His eyes were growing wilder and wilder. When we got out of this, I was going to tear into Annabelle and Darius for antagonizing him. What happened to shutting the fuck up?

“It does make me think. I’m also thinking about that fancy new jewelry that witch gave you. I’m sure you think it’s keeping you safe, but you’re all fools, falling for the lies of some uneducated, backwards woman who lives in a shack. All it does is amplify emotion. Anyone who hates you is going to hate you more. Would you like an example?”

“You’re going to give one anyone, so let’s get it over with,” Darius said.

“Darius shut up,” I demanded.

“A good example of how that magic she gave you works is me. I hate the five of you more right now than I’ve hated anything in a long time. It’s quite an accomplishment. Very impressive.”

“Very,” Annabelle repeated dryly.

We were almost out of downtown. The end of the street was less than a hundred feet away. In another few minutes, the dorms would rise in front of us and we could wait Joseph out there. I looked back at the guys across the street and saw they were still keeping pace. One had his phone held out towards us. He nudged his friend, then pointed. His friend laughed.

_They’re looking for a fight. They’re not going to help us._

The realization made me want to break away from our group and make a run for it, but I clamped down on the feeling and hauled it back. I had to stay in control.

“If you weren’t so detestable, I’d almost feel bad for doing this,” Joseph said. He stopped walking, and planted his feet onto the street, then shouted: “Stop!” His voice cut snapped through the air like a whip. Hearing it was a punch to the face. Our entire group froze. My legs locked up and my breath caught. My foot hovered over the ground, and then I started to fall. I couldn’t even reach out to stop myself. There was nowhere there to catch me.

I knocked into Darius, then Darius knocked into Annabelle and the three of us went tumbling down. Someone fell on top of me and drove my shoulder deeper into the pavement. The pain of it finally kick-started my lungs and I gasped for breath.

“Now, we’re going to have that conversation,” Joseph said. His men closed in on us, blocking my sight of the guys across the street. He unslung the shovel from over his shoulder and glared down at us. I almost pissed myself in fear. When we got out of this, if we got out of this, I was going to fucking kill Annabelle and Darius for egging him on.

“I’m going to start what I know because no matter how ungrateful ya’ll are, I am a polite man at heart,” Joseph snarled. “Really, you could learn a lot for me. Some other time, we could come together and have a nice chat about manners and deference. I think-”

“Fucking spit it out already,” Annabelle shouted. “We haven’t got all night. All we want to do is leave and you’re not letting us. This is assault!”

Joseph laughed. “You think those idiots across the street are going to save you from his? You’re not half as smart as you think you are Miss Ardent.”

He knew her name. That was incredibly fucking creepy. Annabelle’s family was known in Hope, but her parents didn’t spend enough time in town to build any connections. To almost everyone, they were just that rich family who lived in the creepy mansion. No one who wasn’t a part of Hope’s local gossip mill or went to my high school should know her. Whoever Joseph was, he kept up to date on Hopes’ many rumors.

I sat up, then backed up so I was sitting against the storefront behind me. The others did the same. We were all lined up, sitting on the sidewalk like elementary school children on a field trip, obeying so we weren’t yelled at again. I didn’t know how Joseph had done it, but if he told me to smash my head into the concrete the same way he’d told us to stop, I was pretty sure I'd do it. I didn’t know to fight against this kind of magic. I didn’t even know if I _could_. I reached up and grabbed my new necklaces, then counted my breaths and tried to not let my fear and panic override everything else.

“To get to the heart of the matter, I think the five of robbed the Maye family grave. I think-”

“Prove it,” Elise said.

“I was getting to that,” Joseph growled. He pointed to his shovel. “These shovels feel like you three,” Joseph said, pointing at Darius, Willow, and I respectively.

“My skin is way nicer than wood. I don’t feel like that. You have to be-”

“Shut up!” Joseph snarled. Spit flew from his mouth and that press to his words was back. The one that made disobedience unthinkable.

Darius did. His jaw snapped closed and his teeth clinked together. The rest of us followed suit. At least we could stick to our plan of shutting the fuck up now.

“As I was saying, these shovels feel like you three. I found them after I went to the Maye estate to investigate the crime. After I found them, I put them somewhere safe, then went to the hospital to talk to Doctor Maye, hoping she could give me a hint as to who they belonged to. Want to know what she told me?” he asked.

No one spoke. Even if I could’ve, I wouldn’t have. My chest was so tight with fear that finding anything to say was unthinkable. I was on the verge of another panic attack. I tilted my head up and looked at the dark, empty sky, trying to contain my emotions before they spilled out and ruined me.

“Of course you do. What am I saying?” Joseph laughed. “Well, she told me that she saw three of the thieves, but she saw one in particular very clearly. Some sort of hermaphrodite with a fake voice and a penchant for begging. One that has a bit of a reputation in Hope.”

I could feel his eyes burning into me. Something was trying to worm its way under my skin and into my soul, past my flesh and bone and to somewhere I hadn’t even known existed. I bit my lip so hard that I tasted blood, but the pain grounded me. The creeping sense under my skin halted. I tried to breathe.

Joseph’s face appeared above me, glaring down at me with more loathing than I’d ever seen someone have before. tell me, Mr. Matthew Cox, why did Doctor Maye see you at her house? Who sent you there? Did that witch? Tell me!”

I couldn’t talk. He’d ordered me not to and I had no plans on disobeying. I was more than happy to shut up. To try and block him out and give as little away as possible.

“Speak!” Joseph bellowed.

I screamed.

It was the first thing I could think to do. The only response that my body would tolerate. I wasn’t winning a fight and I wasn’t running but I needed to do something. I couldn’t sit under Joseph’s eyes and be fine.

“Hey ya’ll cut the shit!” someone shouted. I didn’t know who. Joseph looked over his shoulder, then shifted out of the way. The two guys were crossing the street. “What are you doing to them? What’s up with the shovels?” he asked again. He was dressed in pastel colored shorts and a polo with shaggy brown hair. His friend was a mirror image of him except with blond hair. Frat bros. To my terrified, panicked brain, they were the best thing I’d ever seen.

“Talking,” Jeb replied.

“You were talking?” the other guy asked. They stopped in the middle of the street. “It doesn’t look like they want to talk to you.”

“We don’t,” Annabelle said. “We really fucking don’t.”

“Leave,” Noah ordered, just as robotically as Jeb. His face didn’t even twitch. His eyes were empty. There was no one home inside of his flesh. At least not anymore.

“Please don’t,” Elise said. “Please. We don’t want to be here. Don’t leave us.”

“You heard her,” the brown haired guy said. “Leave or I’m going to call the cops. They don’t want to talk.”

Joseph made a face like he’d sucked on a sour lemon, then smiled broadly. “I suppose we can continue this conversation later. It is getting late. I’ll schedule a meeting for all of us and give ya’ll invites,” he said. He stepped back on to his street, then snapped his fingers. “We’re leaving boys. Come on.”

The four of them marched down the street, surrounded Joseph. Bile rose in my throat. I wanted to vomit. Whatever he’d done to those people was more terrifying to think about than having him standing over him and yelling. He’d made them zombies and treated them like slaves.

I didn’t feel bad about digging up Maribelle and Waylon’s grave or almost killing Doctor Maye anymore.

“Thank you,” Annabelle said. She hoisted herself off the ground, then leaned against the bar again. “That was bad.”

“What was that about?” one of the guys asked. “Were they trying to rob you or something? We thought they were trying to pick a fight.”

“Oh, they were. Trust me,” Darius said, getting to his feet. He dusted off his clothes, then checked his phone. He was tense, but he didn’t seem scared.

“They didn’t like how I and my friends looked and they took it upon themselves to do something about that,” Annabelle said.

The frat bros looked at us. They must’ve noticed how odd of a group we were, especially with how decked out we were in jewelry. I hoped they weren’t bigots.

“Oh. Yeah, that’s- okay. I get it,” the blond said. “Do you like, want us to call the police still?”

“No, no it’s fine. There is nothing they can do, it’d be a waste of time,” Annabelle said. “Thank you for your help though. We appreciate it.” She stepped closer to the guys and smiled.

It was disarming.

She gratitude, kindness, and everything sweet. I didn’t know how she could pull it off after what just happened, but I was glad she could. Having the police show up could only make things worse.

“Oh okay. It wasn’t a problem, you’re welcome,” the brown haired guy said. “What’s your name? By the way? I’m Chad.”

“I’m Annabelle.”

“Cool, that’s cool. Pretty name. Maybe I’ll see you around again?”

“You’re flirting right now? Really?” Darius asked. “Did you come over here hoping you could get some-”

“It’s fine Darius,” Annabelle insisted. “We’re very grateful. If I see you again, I’ll make sure to say hi. Ya’ll have a good night now.” She blew them a kiss.

They walked away.

“I hope I never see them again,” Annabelle said.


	13. Everything That Rises - 2.3

“How are we going to contact Isiah?” Elise asked.

We were back in the library, jammed in that tiny little room again. Annabelle had printed out a piece of paper with the words “LGBT CLUB” in all caps and rainbow letters and taped it to the outside of the door. She’d snapped a picture of it, and told us that she was going to send it as an attachment every time she emailed a professor or an administrator about our club. I doubted that it, but I was pretty sure she was doing it more out of pettiness than any real hope. Besides, I’d rather sit in a cramped room in the library and listen to Annabelle bitch and moan about the university than go to the stupid first-year club.

For once, everything was nice and normal. There was no magic to what was going on with the club. Our problem was simple, and the only consequence for failure were not having our club be official. After seeing our errand for Madame Grace get its own article in the paper and a brief segment on the local news, I was more than happy to devote my time to something that wasn’t going to get me arrested or killed.

Unfortunately, things could only stay normal for so long.

“We could go back to the asylum and pin a note,” Darius suggested. “He’s obviously been there before.”

“No, we’re not doing that. I don’t want to go back in there. Not with Joseph stalking us. It’s way too isolated,” I said.

“He’s stalking us? I haven’t seen him since Tuesday,” Willow replied.

“I’m assuming he is. He found us the first time and we don’t know how. We’re playing it safe.”

“I’m vetoing the asylum as well. We can do better,” Annabelle said.

“We can?” Elise asked. “What’s better? It seems pretty straight to the point.”

“If we’re going to leave a note, we can pin it to the tree in the cemetery. We’re not fucking breaking into somewhere again.” She held up her wrist and pointed to her brass bracelet. “I don’t want to do any crime wearing these. It’s a good way to get caught.”

“So we leave a letter on the tree and…” Elise asked. “Is that all we’ve got? What are we even going to say? Ask for a meeting?”

“We’re not meeting him. Madame Grace is,” I said. “I don’t want to talk to him again if I can help it.”

“Scared?” Darius asked.

“Fuck yes. I’ve got Joseph and the police looking for me. I don’t need Isiah doing it too.”

“Has your mom given you any updates about that?” Willow asked.

I scoffed. “Updates? No. She’s stopped calling though, which means they haven’t been back to her house.”

“Do you think you’re going to be arrested?”

It was the question of the hour for me. Maybe even the question of the week. The answer to it seemed obvious though. “Yes,” I said.

“They don’t have anything on you though. All they’re working with is eyewitness testimony that's coming from an old woman who smacked her head on a steering wheel. It’ll be fine,” Darius said.

“Yeah, well you’re not the one who they’re looking into,” I shot back.

“Can we put a pin in this for a sec? We have to figure out how we’re going to swing this Isiah thing,” Elise said. “So, to be clear, our only plan writing a letter?”

“Madame Grace didn’t give us a timeline on how fast we had to contact him. We’ll write the letter, give it a week or something, and if he bites then problem solved. If he doesn't, we’ll go from there. Easy,” Darius said.

“This is a shitty plan,” Elise complained.

“Oh it is, but I don’t think we have anything better. Unless you do?” Darius asked.

Elise sighed. She looked up at the ceiling and tapped her fingers on the table. I waited for her to blow us out of the water with a plan none of us had even thought about. “No,” she admitted.

So much for blowing us out of the water.

“We’ll pin it tomorrow after class. I’ll write it up,” Darius said.

“No.”

We all looked towards Willow. They were toying with their hair, their face scrunched up in thought.

“No? What the fuck do you mean no?” Annabelle asked.

“I’ll write it. I want to do it.”

“Sure. You write it then. I don’t care,” Darius said. “Just text us when you’re going.”

“Okay.”

“Great, now back to other problem,” Elise declared. She looked at me. “Do you have a lawyer? Just in case you do get arrested?”

“A lawyer?” I asked. I pointed to myself. “You think I have a lawyer?”

“I’ve got it covered,” Annabelle said. “There is a woman my parents hired to defend us against truancy when Bailey and Taylor stopped going to school. Real hard ass. She goes by Miss Burns. I let her know that we might need her. She said she’d be ready.”

“Who’s paying for that? You?” Darius asked.

“My parents.”

Elise raised her eyebrows. “You’re going to throw the bill for this at your parents? Didn’t they already give you money for the car?”

“No, they don’t know about the car. I paid for that,” Annabelle said.

“With money they gave you.”

“Yes, but that was money for me to spend however I wanted. Trust me, they don’t know about the car.”

I’d known Annabelle for years and I still couldn’t get over how sickeningly rich her family was. I didn’t think I ever would.

“Do you still know the story we’re going with?” Elise asked me.

“Yeah, it’s simple. I’ve got it.”

“Good.”

“Anything other questions then?” Annabelle asked.

Darius raised his hand. “I have one Annabelle. It’s super important.”

“Is this a real question?” she asked.

“It’s utterly crucial my queen. You have no idea. You can’t even begin to comprehend how important it is.”

Annabelle rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Fucking ask it then.”

Darius smiled, then looked around the room. “How do ya’ll feel?”

Annabelle looked like she’d just stepped in a pile of dog shit. “How do I feel? I feel fucking annoyed that you asked such a stupid fucking question. What the hell do you mean, ‘how do I feel?’ You fucking live with me, you already know the answer to that!” she snapped.

“Yeah, but I don’t live with the others and right now, you seem pretty fucking mad. Do you want to talk about that?”

Annabelle’s face went red. Darius leaned back in his and put his hands behind his head.

“You want to talk about we feel? Then yeah, I’m fucking pissed. You’re being a smug asshole, the university is still being a piece of shit, Joseph wants to kill us and bring back the fucking confederacy, and Madame Grace can’t explain how magic works in the slightest! So yeah, I’ve fucking pissed!” Annabelle started to pace around the room, her hands clasped behind her back. She looked like some sort of furious general yelling at her troops after a loss. “These fucking bracelets too? Obnoxious. And that Chad guy is obsessed with me. He keeps trying to fucking talk to me.

“The bracelets are trash yeah,” I agreed.

“Shh, it’s her turn, you’ll get yours, let her finish,” Darius said.

“Is there a point to any of this? Are you just pissing me off to watch what happens?” Annabelle asked.

“No, I’m curious. Please go on.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being serious. I don’t think anyone could. Nothing about his tone or body language indicated that he was fucking with us, but it still felt wrong. There was something ever so slightly amiss.

“No. I’m done talking,” Annabelle said. She still looked furious.

“Do you feel better?” Darius asked.

Annabelle glared at him and said, “No.”

He snapped his fingers in disappointment. “Damn. What about you Elise? Can we get a status check?”

“Wait, you actually want to know?” she asked.

“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked. Seriously, how are you feeling?”

Elise took a moment to compose herself before she spoke. “Oh, uh. I’m alright. I guess. My parents are still asking me about what happened to my and Annabelle’s car. I don’t think they’re buying the official story. They’re getting kind of annoyed that I haven't been in to work as much lately too, so that’s been annoying too.”

“Just annoying?” Darius asked.

“For now. I’m hoping it stays that way. I’m stressed about the same things everyone else is, but I knew what I signed up for, so I’m not doing too bad,” she smiled.

“Cool, Willow how are you?” Darius asked.

“Good,” they said.

“Just good.”

“Mhm.”

“Nothing else to add?” Darius prompted.

Willow shrugged. “I’m training a few of the crows in Hope to help me using magic. It’s going pretty well. I’m trying to walk the line between domesticating them and making them not afraid of people but still trusting me. I was going to suggest using them to help find Isiah, but I don’t know if they can do that yet. When they get to that point, I’ll let you.”

“Wait, you’ve been training magic crows?” Elise asked.

“They’re normal crows.”

“But you’ve been training them with magic.”

“Yes.”

“Magic crows then,” Elise said.

“You’ve figured out how magic works?” Annabelle asked.

“No.”

“You’re doing it though?”

“Just because I can do it, doesn’t mean I understand how it’s working. All I know for sure is what Madame Grace has told me.”

“Can you help us learn?” Darius asked.

“I don’t think so. You just need to practice.”

“Can we practice on your birds?” I asked.

“No!” they said, almost shouting. “No one does magic on the crows. Don’t mess with them. I don’t want any of them to get hurt, and if I find out you hurt them, I’m going to hurt you.”

“We won’t touch them,” Darius said. “Sorry, I asked.”

“It’s fine.”

Darius turned to me and grinned. “Moving right along then, Serenity, what about you? Tell the class how you feel.”

All eyes turned towards me. I shrunk back. “Can we not look at me while I do this?”

“You don’t have to do it,” Elise said.

“No, no we’re all gonna have a turn. This is good club bonding, right Annabelle?” Darius asked.

Annabelle glowered. “Fuck off.”

“See?”

“I’m- the bracelet is not great. People are looking at me more. I thought bathrooms were bad before, but now I just- I don’t even want to touch them if I’m on campus. I’m worried it’s going to make the police even more interested in me and I really, really don’t want to get arrested. I don’t know how to make that clearer. I’ve been there before and it was awful and that was when they were using the kid gloves. They’re not going to use the kid gloves if I get arrested again. So yeah. I’m shitty. I guess. It’s a process.”

Darius nodded politely. I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. At least I hadn’t said anything about Annabelle and Darius. That might have been the only way to make the situation worse.

“Well, I’m doing great, thank you for asking,” Darius said. “This is all a bit stressful, but I think it’s going pretty well all things considered. I’m content.”

“I swear to God you’d be content no matter what,” Annabelle said.

“That’s not true, I’m a picky man. I require only the best life circumstances.”

It was so stupid. I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. Some of the tension in the room eased as Elise let out her own little laugh. Willow stayed silent and Annabelle kept sneering, but it was still an improvement.

“Serenity, I know you’re worried about being arrested, and you’re not wrong to be, but I really do think it’s fine. We’re not going to let anything happen to you,” Darius assured me.

“That’s the point of the lawyer,” Annabelle added.

“Exactly. I think it’ll all be fine.”

I smiled back at him and hoped he was right.

_

It was not fine.

I’d gotten through most of Friday unscathed, fending off the typical side eyes my bracelet and my actions earned me. I thought everything was going to be another boring day until I stepped outside of my class and saw two police officers standing ramrod straight against the wall outside the door. They stared at me when as I exited.

The first cop was a barrel chested man with a beer belly and acne scars all over his face. Next to him stood a man who was around 3 inches shorter, but was in much better shape. He looked like a better fit for the military than the police. His sandy blond hair was shaved close to his head. The only part of him that seemed to move at all were his eyes.

Guess this was happening now then.

“Mr. Matthew Cox?” the barrel chested cop said. He stepped forward and offered his hand. “I’m Officer Black. This is my partner Officer McGarth. We’re here to ask you some questions.”

“Officer Black? As in Erin Hunter Black?” I asked.

“The very one. I’m surprised you know me,” he smiled. It was not friendly. “Are you Matthew Cox?”

This motherfucker. He had to know my real name. I’d given it to him when he showed up to investigate Mr. Day’s body. He was only doing it to be an asshole. Had he specifically requested to be the one to investigate me? Had he pushed for it? He seemed all too smug and self-satisfied standing there against the wall. I loathed the sight of it. Before I could get too caught up in what was happening, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and sent out a text telling everyone the cops had been waiting for me, then I shut my phone off and put it away. Better to give them as little to work with as possible.

“Are you Matthew Cox?” Officer Black asked again.

“My name is Serenity Cox. Not Matthew,” I replied.

“Your legal name is Matthew though, isn’t it?”

“My name is Serenity.”

“Well, the law says you Matthew, sorry to say.

More students trickled out of the class behind me, but they weren’t in a hurry to leave. They clustered against the walls of the halls, watching me and the police with naked interest. Other students in the building joined in. I toyed with the idea of tearing off my bracelet, throwing it, and spiriting the other direction, but quickly dismissed it. It was a thought born out of raw panic and fear. I just needed to stick to the plan.

“Are you detaining me?” I asked.

Officer Black blinked to his partner, prompting him to speak. Officer McGarth cleared his throat. “Not yet, we just wanted to ask you a few questions. No one is being arrested yet,” Officer McGrath said.

Yet. He showed his hand. They were going to arrest me at the end of this.

“I don’t want to answer any questions and I don’t want to talk to either of you, so if you’re not detaining me and no one is being arrested, can I leave?”

Officer Black scowled. “You can’t even answer a few of our questions?”

“Nope.”

The crowd rippled. I heard whispers being traded within it. I knew what everyone was thinking. I was thinking the same.

_Were they really going to arrest me in the middle of campus?_

“We’re your friends. We just want to help you,” Officer McGarth said.

“Can I leave or not?” I repeated.

Officer Black lost his patience. He pulled out the handcuffs hooked onto his tool belt and said, “I was hoping we weren’t going to have to do this, but you’re not giving us much of a choice. We need to talk to you. You’re coming with us,” Officer Black declared.

“So I am being detained?”

“No, you’re being arrested,” he said.

My heart beat faster and my chest got tighter. This was happening. This was really happening. “Why am I being arrested,” I asked.

“We have reason to believe that you were involved in a robbery Monday evening. We want to ask you some questions and clear some things up. If you cooperate, this will be easier. Please face the wall and put your hands behind your back.

The crowd had swelled in size, but they kept their distance from the police. I saw a few phones out, no doubt recording, ensuring that my moment of humiliation would be immortalized. I turned around and put my hands behind my back as ordered, trying to stop my hands from shaking. Officer Black grabbed my wrists roughly, then snapped the coughs on. The metal was tight and bit into my skin.

“Turn around,” Officer Black ordered.

I obeyed. Officer McGarth broke away from the wall he stood by, then cleared a path for us to walk down the hall. “Everyone please keep clear and give us space to work. Do not interfere.”

Some of the students shuffled back, slipping into classrooms or the bend in the hall ahead to get out of the way. The braver souls only pressed themselves up against the wall, their phones still our and recording.

Officer Black stepped behind me, put one hand on my shoulder while his other hung down near my wrists. He gave me a light push. “Move.”

I moved.

The crowd followed us outside as we marched out into the courtyard, then through the quad. The crowd amassed further. It was like they were all vultures and I was a rotting carcass. More phones came out. More pictures were taken. I looked around in the crowd, searching for a familiar face, but found no one. I hung my head and tried to breathe. This wasn’t the first time I’d been here. I was going to be fine. Annabelle had a lawyer, we had a plan. I just needed to breathe.

Officer Black and McGarth led me to their police cruiser and shoved me into the back of it. I bumped my head on the way in, but the pain was nothing compared to the raw panic of being trapped in the back of the cruiser. The seats were hard plastic, and there was almost no legroom. My wrists were starting to sting from being trapped in the cuffs. It made my panic rise even further. I rested my head on the seat in front of me and counted my breath. I wouldn’t let them see me lose my head.

“We didn’t have to do this you know,” Officer McGarth said as he got into the passenger seat and shut the door. “We could’ve found a nice room in that building and talked.”

I didn’t answer. It was time to shut the fuck up.

“You’re not going to talk to us?” he asked. The car started moving. “I know you don’t think so, but we are trying to help you. Our job is to keep you and everyone else safe. If you talk to us, I’m sure we can clear up whatever misunderstanding has led to you being in the back of our car.”

It took everything in me not to laugh. He was so full of shit. They weren’t here to help me. They were here to throw me into a cell and make sure I didn’t get out.

“Guess he doesn't want to talk,” Officer Black said. “Looks kind of bad if you ask me.”

“Yeah, it does,” Officer McGarth agreed. He tried to meet my eyes in the mirror. I refused.

The drive to the station was short and rough. Officer Black drove like a 15-year-old who just got their learner's permit. He slammed on the brake and accelerator as much as he could, bouncing me around like a pinball in the back. If I had any doubts that he hated me before, I had none now.

When we reached the station, the cops hauled me out of the car and led me to a small room with a desk with a plastic barrier and an area for mugshots. They uncuffed me while they took all my jewelry, my phone, shoes, and a wallet and stuffed it into a tiny box, then locked that box away in a cabinet. Without my jewelry on, I felt lost at sea. There was nothing to cling to and my anxiety was only getting worse. All of this was only going to get worse. This was just the start.

They took my mugshot, fingerprinted me, and then I got handcuffed to the desk behind a big plastic barrier and answered questions about who I was and where I lived. Once they were done with that, they gave me a pair of prison slippers, then marched me into an empty, gray interrogation room, cuffed me to the table, and promised me that someone would be there to talk to me soon.

Naturally, that was a lie.

I stewed in silence for what felt like ages, counting my breaths and bouncing my legs. I hoped Annabelle had gotten my message and had her lawyer ready. It would cut down on the waiting if she did because I knew that no matter what they told me, I wasn’t saying shit without my lawyer in the room. I’d done a good job of that so far, and I was going to continue the trend.

Eventually, the door opened again and two new men walked in. They were dressed in dress shirts and ties. Both of them had neatly trimmed hair and cleanly shaved faces. They were the picture of professionalism. One sat across from me at the table, while the other pulled up a chair and sat on my side facing me. If he was any closer, I would’ve been able to smell his breath. The cop in front of me set a thin folder on the table, then folded his hands and nodded.

“Nice to meet you Mr. Cox I’m Detective Laurence and that’s detective Peake.”

“My name is Serenity,” I said.

“It’s still nice to meet you,” Detective Laurence smiled. “Now, let’s clear some formalities out of the way…”

He read me my rights, told me that the interrogation was being recorded, intermixed with several attempts to make conversation. I stared at the wall to the right of his shoulder and waited for him to finish. He gave me a piece of paper that stated he’d read me my rights and told me what was happening. I signed it. He placed it in the folder.

“So, would you like to begin? We have a lot to cover,” Detective Laurence said.

“I want my lawyer,” I replied.

“Your lawyer? What’s her name?” Detective Peake asked.

It was hard to remember. I barely remembered Annabelle saying it, but I knew she had. I closed my eyes and dug deep, fighting past my anxiety, reaching for the memory. “Burns. Her name is Burns,” I said.

The two detectives shared a look. Detective Laurence sighed. “I think a woman by that name has come in. Detective Peake, would you go get her for us?”

“No problem,” Peake said, then left the room. I wondered how long it would take him to come back this time.

“Before your lawyer gets here, is there anything you want to tell me? It seems like you’re in trouble now, but I can get you out of it if you tell me the truth,” Detective Laurence said. “Sometimes people think having a lawyer is some magic trick that gets them out of trouble, then wind up digging the hole they're in deeper. If there is anything you want to get out of the way now, just tell me and I can see about getting you out of this.”

I ignored him.

He sighed. “Look Mr-”

“Serenity,” I cut him off. “My name is Serenity.”

“Right, Mr-”

“Just Serenity,” I interrupted again. “No mister. Don’t call me that.”

“Okay then. Listen Serenity, I’m going, to be honest-

“Don’t you have to stop asking me things? I asked for my lawyer and you’re still going. Aren’t you breaking the law?” I asked.

Detective Laruence pressed his lips into a grim line. The artificial cheer he’d been affecting vanished. “We’ll wait for your lawyer before continuing,” he said.

“Right.”

Time passed even slower with Detective Laurence looking at me. He kept trying to catch my eyes. I kept looking away. He didn’t stop trying until I shut them.

 _What a stupid fucking mind game,_ I thought.

The anxiety twisting inside of me loudly disagreed.

I heard the door open and opened my eyes to find a tall, dark-skinned woman with a shaved head being led into the room by Detective Peake. She was dressed in a black suit and had one of the most severe frowns I’d ever seen. It looked like she’d never smiled in her life. She didn’t wear any earrings, and there wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face. She found eyes found my eyes, nodded, then took a seat next to me. “I’m Miss Burns, it’s nice to meet ya’ll.”

Detective Laurence looked like he was biting his tongue. “Likewise,” he said.

Detective Peake sat back down, this time next to Detective Laurence. I bounced my leg faster. This was the part where I started to lie. I had to make sure I kept every single detail straight. I was glad our cover story was so so simple. There was no way I would’ve remembered it otherwise.

“Alright, then let’s begin. Serenity, can you tell me what you were doing Monday night at around 8:00 o’clock?”

I repeated my alibi, saying as little as I could. Miss Burns supported me in that. She cut off more than a few lines of questioning for me and helped me keep everything straight, whether she knew it or not. However, even with her help, the interrogation was still the most miserable and stressful thing I’d ever done. My stomach churned and a headache started upin the back of my skull. I just wanted it to end already, but the detectives dragged it out past the point of usefulness, asking the same question a hundred different ways, trying as hard as they could to catch me in a lie. I gave them nothing.

As much as they were trying to hide it, they were starting to look frustrated.

“So, let’s just get everything straight one last time,” Detective Peake said. “Last Monday, you were with some friends at one Annabelle Ardent’s house. You went there after your classes ended. You never left there once you arrived and you spent the night there. Is that all correct?”

Hours of interviewing and that’s what we had ended up with. A quick two sentence summary. I couldn’t keep the smugness out of my voice. “Correct.”

“And who did you say could corroborate this story? One last time,” Detective Laurence asked.

“Annabelle Ardent, Darius Williams, Elise Vargas, and Willow Proctor.”

Detective Peake wrote something down then stood up. “Alright then. Unless Detective Laurence has something to add, I think we can say we’re done here.”

“I have nothing,” Detective Laurence said. “For tonight, you’re going into the holding while the DA decides what to do with you. You-”

“My client can’t go into the male holding cell. It’s unsafe,” Miss Burns objected.

“Well, we don’t have anywhere else to put him. He’s a man, he has to go in with all the other men, just like everyone else,” Detective Peake said.

“I’m not a man, that’s not right,” I said. “You can’t- I can’t go in there. You don’t understand. Look at me. Fucking- look.” I gestured down at my body. I pulled at my hair. “I have breasts for fucks sake! I don’t- I’m not a man. You can’t do this to me!”

“Precisely, you’re violating my client's dignity and putting them in an unsafe environment. This won’t stand in a court and you know it,” Miss Burns said.

“It’ll stand find,” Detective Laurence replied. “He’s a man. His ID said he was a man, and so does his birth certificate and everything else we know about him. You don’t get special privileges because you look different. We’re equal opportunity here.”

Miss Burns narrowed her eyes. “There will be consequences for this.”

“I think we’ll be just fine Miss Burns. The DA will decide what to do next. It’s out of both of our hands. For now, he’s going into holding.”

Miss Burns took a deep breath and said, “I’d like a minute alone with my client.”

Detective Peake pointed to a sign on the wall that said everything in the room was being monitored and recorded. “Don’t forget that’s there,” he warned.

“I won’t.”

“Alright then, take your minute. Someone will be in here to put you where you belong shortly,” Detective Laurence said. He smiled at me. “Good talk Mr. Matthew. I hope I don’t see you here again.”

The two detectives left, leaving me in silence. I stared down at the table. My worst fear was about to come true and there was nothing I could do. I was fucked. I wanted to vomit. I want to gouge out of Detective Laurence’s eyes. I wanted to scream. I’d rather have walked through Coastal State Hospital alone with no flashlight ten times over than be put in a holding cell. The corners of my eyes stung, but I forced back the tears. Crying was one of the few things I could do that would make everything worse for myself.”

“I’ll get you out of here as soon as possible,” Miss Burns promised. “They don’t have any evidence against you. This is blatant intimidation and abuse. The judge singed your arrest warrant wasn’t thinking straight. The DA is going to laugh them out of the room. You’re not going to go to prison.

That was good news. I knew it was good news, but it barely registered as anything more than noise. “Okay,” I croaked.

She put a hand on my shoulder but remained silent. She didn’t try to reassure me that everything was going to be okay. I liked that because things were very distinctly not _fucking_ okay.

“Be strong,” she said.

“Okay.

“I’ll wait in here for you to be transferred. Once you are, I’ll do everything I can to get you out. I don’t think you’ll be in here overnight. They messed up—no they fucked up bad here. You’ll have options when this is over.”

“Okay.”

I tried to think about what options I had. The obvious one was suing the police, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea right now. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything. The anxiety and panic had grown so much, that I couldn’t even feel them there anymore. I was just watching my body sit in the hard plastic chair as I waited to be thrown into one of the worst places I could possibly be.

I didn’t notice when the door opened this time. I only realize I was being moved when Miss Burns stood up and I was uncuffed from the table. One cop guided me out of the room while the other attended to Miss Burns. We split off in the hall, her going left, me going right. I stared at the floor.

“You’re really going to put me in there?” I asked.

“Yes. You’re a man, you go in with the other men,” the officer behind me grunted.

“Do I look like a man to you?” I asked completely serious.

“Not my problem.”

We weaved through the station and into a room dominated by an overstuffed holding cell. Scratched up gray steel bars trapped a group of mostly young men, mixed in with some of Hope’s usual older drunks in a dirty metal cage. Some of them sat on two overfull benches that were on opposite sides of the room, forcing others to sit on the floor. Two phones hung at the end of the benches, occupied by two men shouting into them. Their shouting made everyone else shout. At the very back of the cell, there was a disgusting toilet and sink that didn’t seem like it’d been cleaned in years.

And I was about to go in there.

A few of the prisoners leered at me when I entered, looking me up and down in a way that should’ve made my skin crawl. As it was, it felt like nothing. I was a spectator of my own body. The officer led me to the cell, opened the door, then shoved me inside and slammed the door shut behind me. I slid to the floor and pressed my back against it, keeping my eyes down, hoping everyone would just ignore me.

“Oh looks like we got a punk,” a man with a face that looked like it’d been punched a hundred times said. His clothes were dirty and he was covered in shitty tattoos. He nudged his friend and pointed at me. I didn’t react.

“What’s your name?” the same man asked.

I ignored him.

“Hey! I asked you a fucking question!” he shouted.

I didn’t look up. So long as I didn’t move, I’d be safe. Nothing could happen. I just had to be patient.

_

Being interrogated had nothing on sitting in the holding cell. It seemed I was collecting progressively more miserable experiences tonight. The man with shitty tattoos, who I found out was called Dean, wouldn’t stop shouting at me. He got some of the other inmates to join in, and together they all entertained themselves by leering at me and taking digs. I barely heard any of it. It all washed over me and joined the mass of other insults and slurs I’d been called in my life. If they weren’t so close, if they weren’t right there I wouldn’t have been afraid.

But I was afraid. Even though the numbness that had spread out inside of me, I was fucking terrified.

If Dean wasn’t in the holding cell with me, I could’ve gotten by without anyone saying a word to me. Most people ignored me. Even a few of the agitators Dean recruited got bored, but Dean had made it his personal mission to make my stay as shitty as humanly possible as if it was a mission sent from God himself. No one stopped him. No one was going to stand up for the tranny curled up against the cell door. It wasn’t worth the fight. Even the cop that sat outside, watching the inmate, didn’t give two fucks.

God, I couldn’t wait for Dean to get further into the system. Once he got out of this holding cell in a real jail, someone was going to fuck him up bad. He talked too much. He elbowed people to get their attention and laughed too loudly at his own jokes. I didn’t know much about prison, but I was pretty sure being that obnoxious was a one way ticket to getting your head split open. He wasn’t even that built. He was a scrawny, ratty thing of a human being who had found a target he could tear into with zero consequence. One day, hopefully soon, he’d be that target.

I desperately had to pee, but there wasn’t a snowball's chance in hell I was going to get up and try to use the toilet. I didn’t have a deathwish, and if I got any closer to Dean, he’d take it as an invitation to get grabby. I didn’t want to find out what happened if it came to that. I didn’t want to get into a fight and be trapped in this hellhole any longer. Nothing was worth it. All I wanted was for Miss Burns to make good on her promise to get me out, because if she didn’t…

It hurt too much to think about. It was too terrifying, too big, and too depressing, so I didn’t think about it. Instead, I kept track of the time by how many times Dean repeated one of his threats or insults. It was the only way to tell that time was still moving at all. There were no clocks in the cell and I wasn’t going to turn around and ask the guard for anything. No matter what they said, I wouldn’t trust them. How could I when they sat there and were complicit in this?

Instead of thinking about anything that was happening, I chewed at the inside of my cheek. I’d long since started to taste blood, but the pain kept me awake and alert. More time passed. A college student, too drunk to stand, but drunk enough to get arrested, was shoved into the room. He promptly slumped on the floor, barely awake a few feet away from me. looked on jealously. When he woke up, he’d be done. He didn’t have to sit and wait for time to crawl by. He didn’t have to deal with people treating him like a piece of meat.

“Matthew Cox?” someone called out behind me. I turned and found the now cop there. When had he got there? I hadn’t even remembered the shift swapping. That meant another one had sat there, seen what was happening to me, and didn’t care. The piece of shit. “Get up, you’re free to go.”

“Huh?”

The cop scowled at me. “You’re done. Out. Get off the floor and back away from the odor,” he ordered, withdrawing a key from his pocket.

The key was what brought me back to reality. This was really happening. I was going to get out. I climbed to my feet, my legs shaking like a newborn foal's, but not out of fear. No, now it was out of excitement. We’d fucking done it. We pulled it off. I was safe.

“Aww, don’t leave us so soon angel! Stay a while, we’re lonely here!” Dean shouted.

I turned around and smirked. I was leaving. I was safe now. Dean wasn’t. Riding high on my newfound freedom, I met his eyes. “Fuck you, you worthless cunt. You’re going to rot here like the worthless piece of shit you are and the world will be better for it.”

He moved faster than I thought he would. One moment he was on the bench and then he was right in front of me and his fist was smashing into my ace. My head bounced off the bars. I heard the guard shout. None of it mattered to me. Not even the pain in my head. What was a little pain after today? It was almost nice to feel more of, a reminder that I was still a thing of flesh and blood and bone. I laughed.

Another inmate hauled Dean back, but it did no good. The cell door opened and four cops entered the cell, grabbed Dean, and dragged him out with his hands cuffed. I watched him go with a deep, stewing resentment, then forced myself up to my feet and turned it on the police. If they didn’t have anywhere to put me, then where the fuck was Dean going?

“Get out. Now,” the cop growled.

I dragged myself out of the cell. The door slammed shut behind me. The cop who watched me get hit didn’t say anything to me. He just led me out of the door and down a hall. I could feel my eye starting to swell shut. It was going to bruise. Good thing I already avoided mirrors as it was. I didn’t want to see how much uglier my new injury made me.

The guard traded me off to another officer, and that cop took me down another hall, through a few more doors, and then we were back in the booking area. Miss Burns was there, typing away on her phone. She looked up when she saw me and her eyes went wide. “What happened?” she demanded.

“Someone hit him, he’s fine though,” the cop said.

“I’m sorry? Someone hit my client?”

The officer nodded. “Yes ma’am.|

“I want the incident noted and I want a copy of it sent to me. I want to know the name of the guard who let this happen too.”

“Ma’am we-”

“I know you record these things. I’m not an idiot. Give me a copy of the report. Things are already bad enough for you.”

The cop sighed and stepped back. “Alright. I will.” He pointed at a cop sitting behind the desk with the plastic barrier. “Officer Wilson will give you your items back. Have a good night,” he said before he walked back the way he came.

“Serenity, are you okay?” Miss Burns asked. She walked closer to me. “That looks bad.”

I laughed again and wiped my mouth. My saliva had a bit of blood mixed in it but that was form chewing my cheek, not getting punched. I was still riding high on the thrill and adrenaline of getting hit and then getting out. If I wasn’t, the sight would’ve made me sick.

“I’m good. I just want to go,” I replied.

“Get my client their things,” Miss Burns commanded.

I’d thought getting my jewelry and stuff back would make me feel better. It didn’t. It made me feel ten times worse. It sapped away my adrenaline and confiscated the last of the numbness inside of me, leaving me shuddering in pain and fear. I clung to the jewelry tighter and slipped my shoes back on. Miss Burns exchanged a few words with Officer Wilson, and then we were up and moving again, emerging out in the lobby of the station. It would've been empty if it wasn’t for Annabelle and Darius sitting there, waiting.

Annabelle sprung up from her chair.“Serenity! Thank fuck you’re okay! I thought-”

“No shouting!” Officer Wilson barked.

Annabelle shot him a glare, then walked up to me and pulled me into a hug. Darius joined her. My arms hung limp at my side. I didn’t mind that it was happening, but I just…couldn’t. Not now.

“Give her some space,” Darius said as he pulled away.

“Space?” Annabelle asked. “She’s-”

“Please. SPace would be nice,” I whispered.

Annabelle backed up, then looked at Miss Burns. “Is everything taken care of? Are we good to leave?”

“There ism ore work to be done considering the circumstances, but yes. Nothing is keeping you here. I’ll take care of the rest in the coming days and we’ll go from there.”

I turned around and looked at Miss Burns in the eye. I must’ve looked like shit, but I didn’t care. She dragged me out of the pit, and for that, I would always be grateful. I stuck out my hand. “Thank you.”

She shook it and gave it a light squeeze. “Not a problem. You haven’t seen the last of me.”

Annabelle and Darius flanked me, walking a half step behind as they led me to Annabelle’s car. When we got in and started to move, I checked the time on my phone. 4:00 AM. I’d gotten out in what was probably record time, but I didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t feel much of anything. After my outburst in the cell, it was hard to care anymore. It was like I was back on the prison floor, tuning out the world all over again.

Once we got to Annabelle’s house I went straight up the stairs, and then took the longest, hottest shower of my life. I barely felt it. I hated it. I wanted to be back in my own body already. To feel things and have emotions again, but they were behind some hidden wall that I couldn’t knock down. I clutched at my necklaces, but they did nothing to help. I got out of the shower and to my horror, caught sight of myself n the mirror. The bruise over my eye was blooming into a heavy dark purple. It was disgusting. I was disgusting.

Fuck.

Fuck!

I dragged myself out of the bathroom, got changed, then ate in silence in the kitchen. Darius and Annabelle sat in there with me, but neither of them seemed like they were about what to say. I wanted to feel bad about making them worry, but I couldn’t feel bad in general right now. I just wanted to feel. I started to shake my leg under the table.

“Darius,” I said.

“What?”

“Go get me whatever the strongest alcohol is in this house right now. I’m getting drunk.”

“Of course,” he said, smoothly rising out of his chair and exiting.

“You’re pissed at me,” Annabelle said.

“Not everything about you.”

“Yeah, but I know you’re mad at me,” she said. “I told you it was going to be fine and it obviously wasn’t. I lied to you.”

“It’s not about you.”

Annabelle went quiet and watched me carefully. She brushed some of her hair out of her face and slumped down in her chair. It made her appear small. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep, and whenever she blinked, her eyes stayed shut for a good second.

“Did you stay awake the whole night for me?” I asked.

“You think I would’ve slept while you were in there? I’m not that much of a bitch.”

She’d stayed up for me. Gotten my lawyer and waited until she saw me again before she even slept. It might’ve been the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. I should thank her. I should say a lot of things.

I didn’t say any of them.

Darius returned to the room, bearing a half-empty bottle of vodka. He looked back and forth between me and Annabelle and quirked up an eyebrow. “We’ve got some tension here. Love to see it,” he said.

I grabbed the bottle, popped off the top, then drank straight from it. I gagged at first but fought back the urge to spit anything out. It tasted and smelled like nail polish remover, but that probably spoke to how strong it was. that was in it. I drank for three long seconds, then slammed the bottle back down and bit my lip, and covered my mouth. I wanted to spit it all back out, but I refused to allow that to happen. I was going to feel something even if that something was drunk.

“You good?” Darius asked.

“Working on it,” I said as I picked up the bottle again and drank another shot’s worth from it. I set it back down, then looked back up at Darius and Annabelle. Both of them were looking at me with concern. My stomach churned and I felt stirrings of guilt. It was a relief. Any emotion, no matter what it was, was acceptable right now. I still wanted more though. More feelings.

“Do you want to fuck?” I blurted out.

Annabelle blinked, then looked at Darius. He smiled his usual disarming smile. “I would, but you’re not really-”

“What? Not really what?” I asked. I got up from my chair and the world spun for a brief moment before I caught myself. “I’m fine. I’m not even drunk. I can consent.”

“I don’t feel like it, so no,” Annabelle said.

I glared at her. “What? You going to baby me then?”

“You’re kind of freaking out,” Darius said.

“I’m fine.”

He stepped forward and pulled me into a hug. I went stiff. “What the fuck are you doing?” I mumbled against his shoulder.

“Hugging you.”

“Why?”

“I felt like it.”

I heard Annabelle stand up, and then felt her move behind me and wrap her arms around my waist. “ We fucked up and you took the fall for it. I won’t let it happen again,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard Annabelle apologize for everything. It was hard to believe she said it in the first place, but I knew I wasn’t hearing things. The feel of her pressed against me was too real. It was all too real.

I was alive.

All my emotion came crashing back over me in one fell swoop. It was like the first time Madame Grace read my fortune all over again, except 10 times more intense. I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed. Something warm and wet ran down my face. I realized I was crying. As soon as I did, another huge sob wracked my body. I coiled my arms around Darius and squeezed him tight enough to give him bruises. Annabelle held me tighter too and I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve any of it, but I had it and I wasn’t going to let it go for the life of me. Not now.

“You’re okay,” Darius soothed. “You’re okay.”

I wasn’t, not in the slightest, but right now I didn’t have to be. Crying wasn’t going to put a target on my back. It wasn’t going to make the police press harder or make any prisoners see me as an easy target. In the middle of Annabelle’s kitchen, I could cry my eyes out to my heart's content and it was fine. I would be fine.

“Come on, let’s go lay down,” Darius said. “Come on.”

We made our way to Annabelle’s room and then into her bed. They kept their arms around me the whole time. I couldn’t stop crying, but I was too tired to fight my emotions anymore. Feeling again was amazing. I never wanted to drift off like I had before again.

Soon, sobs stopped wracking my body and no new tears came. I didn’t move from where I was cuddled up with Darius. I didn’t want to remove my head from his shoulder and I didn’t want to stop Annabelle from spooning me. At least like this, I was safe.

“I’m going to kill them,” I mumbled into Darius’s shirt.

“We can’t hear you,” Annabelle said. “Lift up your head.”

“I’m- I’m going to kill them,” I repeated, turning my head to the side so my words were no longer muffled.

“Kill who?” Darius asked.

I didn’t really know. I wished I could’ve picked a single cop in the police station to blame and direct all my anger at, but there were too many to count, and all of them had played a role in throwing me into that cell. It was frustrating beyond words. Even if every single cop in the station dropped dead tonight, they would be replaced by more people who would’ve done the same.

I thought of Isiah, trapped in the Coastal State, being tortured every day by people who could always push responsibility off to someone else. People who could say that we're doing what was best for him and if that didn’t work, that they were just following procedure. No wonder he set his sights on all of Hope. Why wouldn’t he? Maribelle and Waylon could only do what they did because no one stopped them. They weren’t the only ones to blame for what happened to him.

“Isiah is right, this town needs to die,” I spat. “It needs- we- fuck!” I cursed. I burrowed my head back into Darius' shoulder. Fuck.

Neither of them said anything. I didn’t expect them to. They were already doing more than enough and maybe, just maybe, I was a little bit drunk.

But I was still right.


	14. Everything That Rises - 2.4

I was alone when I woke up.

The mattress was still warm, which meant that Darius and Annabelle hadn’t gotten up too long ago. I checked the time on the little alarm clock Annabelle kept on her nightstand. It was mid-afternoon. I’d slept for more than 8 hours and I still felt like shit. My face hurt and my throat was dryer than a desert, but at least that was the worst of it.

Memories of last night began to trickle in through the fog of exhaustion. Everything was sharp and clear and terrifying up until I’d gotten thrown in the holding cell. The hours after that were a hazy, half-remembered mess. I was grateful for that. If I was going to half-remember anything, then it may as well be the shittiest, longest hours of my life.

The memories jogged my emotions, and with a sigh of relief, I realized they were completely back, no longer held at bay by whatever distant place I’d floated off to. They were sharp and insistent. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the faces of Detective Laurence and Peake looking at me, searching for a lie. I remembered the hard plastic chairs, the endless waiting, and the fear of what was going to happen next. It made anxiety balloon in my chest. I could still feel the phantom sensation of the cuffs that had been placed on my wrists over and over again. They’d hurt me. Everyone in that station had.

I wanted revenge.

The form it would take was irrelevant. So long as I did something to hurt them like they’d hurt me, I’d be happy.

For now, I needed to ice my face.

I got out of my bed, then picked from where it fell on the floor. A wall of texts filled up the lock screen. Almost all of them were from our group chat, but I saw a few from my mom and there was even one from Mary. I hovered over one of my mom’s of her texts, then dismissed it. I wasn’t going to be yelled at today. I started to scroll through the group chat. Unsurprisingly, I was the topic of conversation. Elise had taken a picture of the school paper with the message “guess the bracelets work” and the conversation and exploded after that. I focused on the picture she took and started to read the article.

It was boring as all hell and extremely light on detail which was strange considering Mary had written the piece. It didn’t make any sense until I checked the text she sent me and saw that had asked me to talk to her about why I’d gotten arrested. She must’ve written the first article so she would have dibs on interviewing me in the future, gambling that whatever I’d tell her would be more interesting than me fucking up and getting arrested for a justified reason.

She was lucky she was right.

This was my chance for revenge. I’d Let Mary make a story out of me. I was already a story anyway. “Trans person gets falsely arrested and beaten in local Hope jail” was a spicy headline. Maybe I’d get Miss Burns to file a complaint with some civil rights group around the same time Mary released the article. I doubted anything would change because of it, but it would be a bruise that the Hope police would have to bear, no matter how minor.

I texted Mary back and told her I was more than happy to meet her, then texted everyone else to tell them I was alive and well. I got changed, then shuffled out of the room to eat. As soon as I exited, I heard Annabelle and Darius talking in the kitchen, their voices a bit louder and more intense than usual. I stopped to listen.

“We’re leaving. He knows we’re leaving. I don’t think he’s going to join up with Isiah and become a serial killer,” Darius said.

_He._ I didn’t like hearing that one right now after last night. I’d have to tell them to swap again.

“You heard him last night. He sounded serious to me,” Annabelle replied.

“Yeah, he was drunk and just got back from being in prison. People say shit when that happens. He’s with us.”

“I _know,_ ” Annabelle stressed. “I fucking know I just-”

“You can be worried you know,” Darius said. “You could just admit that you are. You don’t have to dress it up like this.”

“I’m trying to be practical!” Annabelle snapped.

“That’s what I’m doing too,” Darius replied calmly. “You can be upset too. This…I don’t know. It was bad. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Bad shit happens and you move on. Serenity will too.”

I took that as my cue to shuffle into the kitchen. Annabelle and Darius looked at me, then each other, then back to me. It was obvious they were trying to figure out how much I heard. I didn’t leave them hanging.

“I’m not going to join up with Isiah,” I said. I went to the freezer grabbed the frozen peas, and put them over my eye. The bag was starting to become my good friend. “If I’m honest though, it’s tempting to want to destroy this fucking town. Also, she, please. Don’t call me he.”

“I feel so assured. Thank you, Serenity,” Annabelle said.

“I’m not trying to assure you.”

“How do you feel today? Better?” Darius asked.

“I’m okay.”

He smiled that bright, disarming way he always did. “Good. I made sandwiches. Yours in the fridge. Come sit and eat.”

Food sounded good. I was starving. I grabbed the sandwich, then set down and devoured it in less than a minute. Darius got me water, and I drained it all in one long gulp. It agitated my stomach, but I was hungry and thirsty enough to keep it all down.

“I’m going to talk to Mary today, the chief of the newspaper or whatever, and tell her about what happened in jail,” I said.

Annabelle startled. “What are you going to tell her?”

“What I told the police. I was arrested under false pretenses and then put in a dangerous place on purpose. She’d love to hear all about it and I’d love everyone to know what they did to me.”

“That’s a lot of attention to bring onto yourself,” Darius replied.

“I’m already in the paper and we’re already wearing the bracelets.” I tapped mine. “I don’t know if it can get much worse.”

“It can. Making this more public is risky as fuck. People are going to read her article and think you deserved it. If it gets big enough, you’ll the scrutiny of 10,000 dipshits digging through every scrap of information about you to make you look bad.”

“For a shitty school paper?” I asked.

“If it goes past that, which it sounds like is what you want, then yeah.”

“She’s right. Whenever a black guy gets shot by the cops, that’s what happens. Don’t see why it’d go different here,” Darius said.

“I’m white,” I replied.

“Yeah, but you’re trans and you have a record. Doing this is wandering blindfolded into a fucking minefield, Serenity,” Annabelle said.

“So what? I do nothing? The police come in, toss me around, and I don’t even get to react?”

“Yeah, shit usually goes like that. A lot of precedent there,” Darius said.

Half of my face had gone numb from the cold of the peas, but I pressed them in harder anyway. “I’m doing something. I don’t give a fuck about the consequences. We’re leaving this town anyway. I can always go somewhere else if this blows up on me.” An idea struck me. I smiled and looked at Annabelle. “You haven’t been to the stupid freshmen club at all, have you?” I asked.

“What? No, of course not. I told you we were boycotting that,” Annabelle said. “What does that have to do with any of this?”

“If you haven’t noticed, we’re not making progress on making it. And we’re fucking busy with-” I gestured at my necklaces and bracelet, “-all of this shit to focus on it. I bet if Mary wrote that GCU was stonewalling us, it’d speed up the process. Trans student gets arrested and beaten and there is no room for an LGBT club at GCU? That looks bad. It looks really fucking bad. We can use that.”

“Willow is still emailing the president.”

“And he’s not answering, is he? This might be our only in. You know that.”

It was good bait. I knew it at soon as I said it, but the way Annabelle frowned and didn’t retort immediately let me know that I had a good argument.

“That all sounds good, but what happened to not having any proof?” Darius asked. “Isn’t that still a problem? The university can still lie and say they’re not doing anything.”

“It doesn’t matter, it’ll still look back. We don’t have to prove they’re fucking us on purpose for it to work.”

“I still don’t like this. You’re going to do more damage to yourself than you think,” Annabelle said.

“Don’t care, I want to do something. This is something. I’m doing it.”

She sighed. “Fine. I can’t stop you.”

“When are you meeting her?” Darius asked.

“I didn’t pick a time,” I answered.

“If you do it today, that’d be convenient. Willow called us earlier, said they have something to tell us. They don’t want to text what it is though. They’re being a bit paranoid.”

“They’re probably right to be. We don’t need to immortalize our fuck up on SMS,” Anabelle said.

“I don’t think they’re going to get a warrant for our texts,” Darius said.

“They might. Everything about this ‘investigation’ was horse shit. It’s all too contrived. Miss Burns said your arrest warrant was garbage and the investigation was rushed and sloppy. Someone was pushing to arrest you ASAP. Who does that sound like to you?”

“You’re getting into conspiracy,” Darius warned.

“I’m not. Doctor Maye saw Serenity and then Joseph rocks up with our shovels? We get away, and then Serenity gets arrested off of a botched warrant? They throw him-”

“Her. Please her,” I said.

“They throw her in the fucking men’s prison? Yeah, all of this could’ve happened on its own, but all together, it looks bad. I don’t trust any of it.”

“So what, you think our witch friends are pulling the strings? What are they the mafia?” Darius asked. He leaned back in his chair and spread his hands. “Yeah, the investigation was bullshit, but what’s more likely, the police are fuck ups or Maribelle and Waylon are responsible?”

“I didn’t say Maribelle and Waylon. I don’t think it’s them. At least not directly.”

“Joseph,” I said.

“Yeah. Joseph. He’s their enforcer or something. He has to be. He introduced himself as a friend of the family and he’s running around threatening their enemies. If he’s doing that, then why wouldn’t he be the one to pressure the police. You’ve felt what he can do.”

“It’s still conspiracy,” Darius said.

“We have to look into him anyway. Even if I’m wrong, we’re not losing anything.”

“If he’s pressuring the police then he has to be someone important. He can’t just be a nobody,” I said.

“That’s what I’m saying, but he is. You’ve tried searching this guy over and over again and you haven’t come up with anything good,” Darius said to Annabelle.

“I have a plan for that,” Annabelle said. “Serenity, you said you’ve seen Joseph talking to Bishop right?”

I knew where this was going and I didn’t like it. “We’re not asking him.”

“We’re out of leads. He knows something.”

“Elise said father John did too.”

“Actually, she said that her parents said that someone similar to Joseph talked to father John. We don’t anything for sure, “Darius corrected.

“Which is why we’re going to Bishop instead of him. We need to know more about Joseph, especially if he’s pulling the strings,” Annabelle said.

“You want me to go with you?” I asked.

Annabelle looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head. “Of course we do. I’ve never been to Hope First and Darius hasn’t either. You’re the only one who’s familiar.”

“Can’t I tell you when it is and you two can go? I don’t want to go.”

“Why?”

There were a hundred little reasons. I didn’t want to see Bishop’s face. I didn’t want to hear his smug, condescending voice or deal with the way he looked at me. I’d had enough Bishop to last me an entire lifetime, but none of those were going to be convincing enough reasons for Annabelle. I had to do better, no matter how fucking annoying that was.

“He knows me. If I walk up and ask him about Joseph, he’s going to want to know why. He’ll tell other people. I don’t want that attention.”

“You’re trying to get on the front page of the paper. It’s too late for subtlety,” Annabelle said.

“This is different. If he does know something about Joseph, then he might know something about witches and magic. If we ask, we’re going to be showing our hand. He’s going to know we’re involved with it. That’s different from people knowing I got arrested.”

“He might already know,” Darius said. “If he’s on Joseph’s side, then he might already be in the loop.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. My anger was starting to rise. I bounced my leg.

“Yes! That’s the fucking problem! We don’t know shit! We need information. We can’ sit around waiting for it to fall in our laps. We need to do _something_!” Annabelle exploded.

Annabelle’s screaming set me off. The anger I’d been trying to hold back forced itself out. The words flew out without me even thinking. “Haven’t we done enough!” I screamed. “We almost killed someone, Annabelle. We almost fucking killed someone? Do you even realize that?” I dropped the peas on the table and pointed to my eye. “I got fucking arrested and thrown in jail! I’ve found two bodies! We’re doing so much!”

“She’s fine. You know she’s fine,” Annabelle said.

“You weren’t even there! You didn’t have to watch it happen!”

“Better her than you.”

Before I could do something I regretted, Darius reached out and grabbed mine and Annabelle’s hands. I tried to yank mine back, but he held it tight. I squeezed back as hard as I could, sinking my nails into the back of his hand.

“Calm down. Both of you,” Darius ordered. His voice was cold and serious. All business. It was like a different person had taken the wheel of Darius’s body. He looked at both of his, his dark brown eyes narrowed and serious. There was no humor in them. “We’re on the same team. You’re both pissed off, but you need to stop screaming because it’s not helping anything. So we’re going to try this. Both of you are going to be quiet for five minutes and think about what you’re going to say.”

“Are you going to let go of my hand?” Annabelle snarled.

“After five minutes I will.”

I didn’t take the time to think about Joseph, Bishop, or what our next step was. I spent my time looking at Darius, trying to figure out what the fuck had happened to him. He’d had moments in the past where I’d caught a glimpse of that cold side of him, but this was the clearest example.

Darius met my eyes, and his expression softened, then changed back into his normal resting face. Any trace of the person from before was gone. He smiled at me. It was genuine as far as I could tell. I was having a very hard time figuring out how any of that was possible.

Time passed slowly, but as it did, I found most of my anger dying off and turning into embers. Darius was right. Screaming wasn’t productive and it wasn’t making me feel better. I rubbed my fingers over where I’d put my nails into him as a silent apology.

“While ya’ll are quiet, I’m going to take my turn to speak. If we do talk to Bishop, then I bet we have leverage. If he’s the high and holy type like ya’ll have made him sound, then he’s not getting involved with magic or witches. Magicians in the bible get killed and go to hell and I’m going to take a wild guess and say he doesn’t want to go to hell. If he’s talking to Joseph, then I bet it’s not willingly. I bet Joseph is forcing him to. He wants something from him. Maybe Bishop will be more willing to talk about Joseph than you think.”

“Can we talk now?” I asked.

He let go of our hands. “So long as you’re not screaming.”

Annabelle ran her fingers through her hair. “Bishop is our only lead right now. I know things haven’t been going well, but they’re only going to get worse if we don’t act. We don’t know anything about Joseph, but he knows a fuck ton about us. We have to level the playing field.”

“It’s a bad idea,” I said.

“We’ll compromise then. I think going to Mary is a bad idea, but if you help us with Bishop, I’ll help you with her.”

“Help me?” I asked.

“You want to sell a sympathetic story, don’t you?”

“Obviously.”

“Then I can help you. I’ll do your hair and makeup. I’ll give you a good outfit to wear. Get Mary to take some pictures. When I’m done with you, no one on the planet will think you belonged in that prison.”

It was tempting. I looked down at my clothes. Even if I did all my own preparation and tried to look as nice as possible, Annabelle would still do a better job. If I was going to get my revenge in any capacity, I was going to need help. I couldn’t do it alone.

“Deal,” I said.

_

Mary raised her eyebrows when she saw me. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t look like my usual self. Annabelle had done a damn good job. She’d stuck me in a pale pink dress with flowers on the hem, given me a huge white sun hat, and pair of tan, expensive tan sandals. I hadn’t looked at my face at all, but if she’d done half as good of a job with my makeup as hers then I had to look amazing. I was photo-op ready. May had to know that.

“That looks pretty bad,” she said, tapping right below her eye. “How’d you get it?”

I sat down at the booth across from her. It was wedged into the corner of the small restaurant we met at, hiding us from prying eyes. She had a recorder, a notebook, and a camera spread out on the table and was drinking a paper cup of coffee at 4 in the afternoon. It smelled strong.

“After they arrested me and interrogated me, they stuck me in a holding cell with the men. A guy named Dean spent hours harassing me, then punched me in the face when I told him to fuck off.

Mary lifted a finger and hovered it over the tape recorder. “We’re starting then?” she asked.

“Go for it. I’m ready.”

She clicked the button and I started my story, sticking to the truth as close as possible and embellishing nothing. If Annabelle and Darius were right about this getting the wrong sort of attention, then everything I said had to be airtight. A single mistake would destroy my already tenuous credibility.

Mary nodded along as I talked, asking the occasional follow-up question and taking notes. She didn’t seem surprised to hear anything I told her, but she still seemed interested. It was nice and professional, but I appreciated that. She wasn’t going to baby me and tell me it was fine or that I was brave or whatever other stupid bullshit. She had no skin in the game other than writing her story, and judging by the way she was listening, mine was worth telling.

“Is there anything else you want to add before I end the recording?” she asked.

“Actually, yes. There is one more thing,” I said.

“Go on.”

“Me and my friends have been trying to get a club up and running for LGBT people, but the university is stonewalling us and making it impossible,” I said. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out a pile of rejected applications for rooms that Annabelle had given me. “My friend filed all of these to get a room for the club. All of them got denied. Our sponsor bailed on us and we can’t find a new one. No one wants to help us.”

Mary picked up the papers and started flicking through them. “Alright, so what does that have to do with you being arrested?” She asked.

“Nothing really. I just think it’s fucking bullshit that I can get arrested and beaten in jail, but the University won’t even let us have a club.”

“Did they that?” she asked, setting the papers down.

“Explicitly?”

“Not that far, but have you gotten any clear indication that your club was being rejected because it’s for LGBT people?”

I thought of Miss Davenport and what she said. I would’ve told Mary, but she was going to ask for proof anyway and I didn’t want to throw Davenport under the bus. “No, nothing explicit. There is no smoking gun,” I said.

She nodded. “Figures.” She glanced at her recorder, then stopped it. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re right about GCU not letting you make your club. They’re definitely stonewalling you, but by the sound of it, you don’t have solid proof, do you? You’re just getting drowned in bureaucracy, right?”

“That is proof,” I said, pointing at the papers.

She shook her head. “No, they could help make the story if you had a smoking gun, but you don’t. The college will deny everything. You’re not going to win that fight.”

“It’s true though! I’m not lying!” I hissed.

She sat back in her chair and took another sip of her coffee. “I know you’re not, but this is already a delicate situation. The police are going to dispute what you told me today. It’s going to be a shit show I can promise you that, and we have good evidence there. Really good evidence.” She pointed at the papers. “We don’t have good evidence here though. I can’t do anything with that.”

“What if you just mentioned it?” I asked. “Said they I was trying to make a club or whatever, to make sure that other LGBT people never feel like I did? That’s the sort of feel good shit people like, right?”

“Maybe, why do you want it in there so bad?” she asked.

“Because I want to make my fucking club. I want to have one goddamn nice thing in this shitty fucking city. Just one thing.”

Mary looked at me evenly. “Alright. I get it.” She scribbled a note on her notepad. “I’ll put in a shout out, but in exchange, I want you to answer something for me. Honestly. It’ll be off the record,” she said.

“What?”

“You’ve got different jewelry from the last time I’ve seen you and there is something…different about you. Enticing. It’s making me very curious about you and I don’t know why. I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Even right now people are looking at us,” she said.

I glanced around the restaurant. It was quiet, but there were a few heads turned toward us. All of them jerked away when they saw me looking. “Alright, what’s your point?”

“Did you get your new jewelry from Madame Grace? Those necklaces and those bracelets, are they hers? Originally?”

It wasn’t worth lying. She already knew. She noticed them on me last time we talked. “Yeah, they’re hers.”

“Alright, so what’s your relationship with her?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Well, you got accused of stealing a corpse and crashing a car into an old woman. That’s fucking weird. And now you’ve got…I don’t know this weird air about you that you didn’t have before. And you’re talking to a woman who calls herself a witch.” Her eyes bored into mine and narrowed slightly. “Did you know that?”

We agreed to shut the fuck up, I thought.

“A witch?”

“Yeah. I knocked on her door. We had a conversation. I paid for her to read my fortune and I asked her if she was a psychic. She told me she only called herself that to bring in customers, but she was a witch. She was dead serious when she said it too.”

“That’s weird.”

“You didn’t know that?”

Time to lie.

“No.”

“So where did you get all the jewelry from?

“I got it from one of my friends. He’s really into astrology and that stuff. I guess he buys them off of her and gives them to me.” I swatted at one of my necklaces. “They’re kind of cool and they’re gifts, so I leave them on, but I don’t know anything about Madame Grace and I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think it’s more likely that people are paying a lot of attention to me because I got arrested on campus yesterday and I have a black eye.”

Mary didn’t look like she believed me, but there was nothing I could do about that. If I warned her to not go poking around, it was only going to make her want to do it more. It was better to try and keep my story as boring as possible. Something so mundane, that she wouldn’t want to ho hunt down proof.

“Alright. If you say so,” she said. She picked up her camera. “You look nice today, so I guess you were expecting me to take pictures, weren’t you?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“You sure you want that? I can leave it out and leave your name out if you want. It might be better,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Like I said, there is going to be backlash when this goes public. I know you got arrested for trespassing once and I don’t know what else you’ve done, but people are going to dig whatever it is back up to discredit you when they read the story. So, are you sure you want me to publish this and if I do publish it, are you sure you want your name on it?”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t do it?” I asked.

“No. I’m warning you what happens if you do. You’ll get support, but you’re also going to get people who hate your guts and want to see you fail at all costs. I want you to know what you’re getting into, but I’m pretty sure you already do.”

Annabelle and Darius’s warnings echoed in my head, but I steeled myself and sat up a bit straight. I was doing this. I wasn’t going to let this go without a fight. “Put my name in it and take my picture. I want this.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. She stood up and threw her backpack over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go outside. I’ll snap a few photos in the light. We’ll make you look even better.”

_

“How’d your meeting go?” Darius asked.

“Good, she took pictures and I told her the story. She said she’d do her best to get it out there, including the stuff about our club,” I reported. I left out the part where she’d asked about Madame Grace. They didn’t need to know that. Telling them would restart the argument about talking to Mary in the first place, and that wasn’t a path I wanted to go down.

“Hopefully she’ll ruin them. Did she take pictures?” Annabelle asked me.

“Yeah, she took a lot.”

“Were they good?”

“I didn’t look.”

“Seriously? What the fuck?”

“I don’t want to look, alright? Lay off,” I said.

“You look fucking good though.”

“More for us to admire,” Darius quipped and shot me a wink.

I felt my face heat up and scrambled to change topics. “Did you talk to Arif?”

“Couldn’t find him. I shot him a text, but he hasn’t answered.”

“Good,” Annabelle said. “The less he knows the better.”

“Not good actually. He’s seen the video of Serenity getting arrested. He’s probably read the paper too. We didn’t to him before the fallout. It’s making us look like shit.” Darius replied.

“He can’t avoid you forever. Ya’ll are still friends,” Annabelle said confidently.

“Which is exactly why we’re going to my room,” Darius said. “His classes ended a while ago. I bet he’s there.”

“Wait, you want us to go with you?” Annabelle asked. “We don’t have anything to do with ya’ll.”

“You’re gonna throw me to the wolves, Annabelle? That’s harsh,” Darius said. “Look, we need to warn him about Joseph, and if you’re serious about your no texting policy right now, I’m going to have to do that in person. May as well do it now.”

“You haven’t warned him already?” I asked.

“I’ve tried. He’s not answering my texts or calls, so no. I haven’t.”

“So you waited until now to do this? Really?” Annabelle asked.

Darius shrugged “better late than never.”

“We have to meet Willow,” Annabelle protested.

“They said they’d be in the field all day. The sun’s still out. We have time,” Darius replied. He started to walk towards the entrance to his dorm. “Come on.”

Annabelle and I followed.

The inside of the dorms was somehow uglier than the outside of it. The carpet was filthy and the walls needed a fresh coat of paint. Darius led up us up to the third floor, then down a long T intersection. Just as we reached the end, the door in front of us and a group of people filed out, Arif behind them.

“Arif, it’s good to see you, can we talk?” Sorry if I’m cutting into your time, but this won’t take too long.”

Arif looked back and forth between the three of us. I turned my attention to the other group. It consisted of two guys and three girls. The guys I recognized as some of the ones Arif had played frisbee with. I recognized them from high school, but I couldn’t remember their names for the life of me. One was about as tall as Arif with neatly trimmed blond hair and a face that had never lost its baby fat. Next to him was a guy around my height with shaggy brown hair and big blues eyes. They were both dressed to blend into the crowd, wearing a pair of knee length shorts and plain t-shirts.

I didn’t recognize any of the women they were with, but they were similarly generic. I wondered if they were related since they all looked so similar. They all had different shades of brown hair, lightly tanned skin, and a variation of short shorts and tank-tops for their outfits. I was jealous of how effortlessly pretty they were, but I took solace in that, even if I wasn’t conventionally pretty in the slightest, I didn’t look so generic.

“Matthew,” the blond guy said, staring right at my bruise. I glared at him, waiting for him to say something about it.

“It’s Serenity, Derek,” Annabelle corrected. At least she remembered his name.

“I see you and Annabelle are still bitches,” the other guy said.

“Josh!” one of the women gasped, glaring at him. “Don’t talk like that! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“No, he’s right. You don’t know them. Especially not Annabelle. She’s mean,” Derek insisted.

Annabelle rolled her eyes. “The only time I was mean for you is when you wolf-whistled at me when I kissed my girlfriend at the time. I wasn’t an asshole before that and I ignored you after. So choke.”

“What the fuck?” another woman asked. She adopted the same glare as her friend. “Did you two do that?”

“She’s just stirring shit,” Derek said.

“Am I lying?” Annabelle countered.

“Is she?” one of the girls asked, putting her hands on her hips. “Because you’re not acting like this is the first time you’ve heard it.”

Derek looked up and away and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t even remember doing that.”

“Josh?” a girl asked. “Did you do it?”

He went red and looked away, mirror Derek. “I don’t maybe?”

“Some defense you got there.”

“Ya’ll are here for Arif, right?” Derek asked. “Why don’t you go talk to him? We’ll meet up with you in the dining hall.”

Annabelle’s eyes glinted maliciously, but before she could make anyone squirm anymore, Darius stepped forward with a with his trademark grin. “Great! Come on Arif,” he said, stepping past him and into the room.

Derek and Josh bid a hasty retreat, but if they thought getting away from Annabelle would get them out of trouble, they were dead wrong. The women they were with were still peppering them with questions about what happened, and I knew sooner or later, they’d wring an apology out of the two of them.

I respected all three of them more after that.

“Come in. This is private,” Darius called from inside the room. Arif looked back with a scowl, then turned his eyes to us. “I told you I didn’t want to hear about any of the weird shit you guys do. That hasn’t changed.”

“You’re going to want to hear about this. I promise. Hear us out,” Darius said.

Arif sighed, then stepped aside and allowed Annabelle and me to enter. The room was tiny. Darius and Arif’s bed were only a few feet apart, and the room barely had enough room for the two desks and two chairs shoved up against the wall. A few posters hung on the wall of Artif’s side of the room, as well as a smattering of clothes on the floor, while Darius’s side was vacant of anything except for a pile of blankets and sheets on top of his bed.

Arif entered the room and shut the door behind us, then crossed his arms and leaned against the door. “This better be important.”

“You’ve been ignoring me,” Darius said.

“Yeah, I have been,” Arif replied.

“Why?”

“This is what you wanted to talk about?” Arif asked He looked at us in disbelief. “Seriously?”

“No, there is more stuff, but I want to figure this out first.”

“I’ve been ignoring you because decided to go run off and rob a grave, and when you went and did it, someone got hurt. Bad,” Arif said. “There was a segment on the news about what you guys did, you know that right? People have been talking about it.”

“We’re aware,” Annabelle said.

“Good, so you shouldn’t have a hard time figuring out why I’m not eager to talk to literal fucking criminals,” Arif said. He narrowed his eyes and glared at the three of us.

I flinched. “There’s context you’re missing. This isn’t as simple as you’re making it out to be.”

“You hit someone with a car and gave them a concussion.”

“Yeah, we’ll she pointed a gun at us first,” I shot back.

“Because you were robbing her fucking family graveyard! Are you even hearing yourself?”

“I’ll level with you, that was a bit of a mess. Not my finest work, but Serenity is still right. You’re missing context.”

“I’m- I’m not going to argue with you about this. What you did was wrong, no matter how you try and justify it.”

“I got arrested for it,” I replied.

“You should’ve,” Arif snapped.

“They put me in the men’s prison.”

“They shouldn’t have done that, but you robbed a grave.”

“You don’t even-”

“Annabelle chill,” Darius said.

Annabelle folded her arms over her chest and glared. “We’re here to warn you that a guy named Joseph is trying to kill us. We’re warning you in case he tries to come for you. You’re welcome.”

Arif’s face went through so many expressions at once that it made me dizzy. Eventually, he settled on looking like a pot of tea about to boil over. He tightened his hands into fists and took a deep, long breath. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me some guy I don’t even know, some guy I have nothing to do with, is trying to fucking kill me?”

“We don’t know what he’s trying to do for sure. We’re just warning you in case it comes to that,” Darius said.

“You’re out of your fucking minds. You’re out of your fucking minds. I don’t-” He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were hard and angry. “Just answer this for me, do you think you’re the good guys here?”

Annabelle jumped to respond. “As a matter of fact, I do. You don’t know the type of people we’re dealing with. You don’t know what the Maye family is up to. You think Doctor Maye, a fucking 70-year-old woman, would pull a gun on people leaving her yard? People who told her they were leaving? Why would she do that? You think her long career of academia prepared her to assassinate us on the spot?”

Arif’s resolve crumbled a hint. “You broke into her yard,” he said.

“Yeah, we fucking dug up a grave. And want to know what we found in that grave? Jack. Fucking. Shit. Maribelle and Waylon’s bodies weren’t fucking there. Want to know why? Because they’re fucking alive! Where do you think they’re living huh? Do you think a pair of over 100-year-old witches just have an apartment here in Hope? You think they have neighbors Arif? They probably live in that fucking house! They have a guy who looks like a living statue threatening to kill people, and that guy, that’s Joseph by the way, and he has three people who follow him around that look like they’ve gotten lobotomies. Maribelle and Waylon built that asylum you went into and tortured a generation of helpless people there for their personal benefit. They’re not good people. So don’t get on you’re fucking moral high horse and bitch at us for trying to warn you that they might want you dead!”

“Get out,” Arif said breathlessly. He opened the door and pointed out into the hall. “Get the fuck out of my room.”

“It’s my room too,” Darius said.

“Get. Out!” Arif shouted.

It was too much for me. If he wanted us to leave, I wasn’t going to argue with him. I walked out the door and back outside, then pressed myself up against the wall and covered my face with my hands. Guilt and fear churned in my stomach. I wanted to vomit. Every beat of my heart made the bruise on my face flare with pain. I stumbled off the walkway, then took a seat on the ground, my back pressed against the dorm.

I didn’t’ just feel sick.

I felt angry.

This was the second argument we’ve had about what happened, the second time Annabelle had come down hard on the ‘we didn’t do anything wrong’ and the second time I wanted to hit something. I looked up at the sky, took a deep breath, and considered screaming, but decided against it. Now was not the time.

Annabelle and Darius walked out of the dorm a minute after me. Annabelle’s face was still red, and she was saying something under her breath, while Darius looked as unperturbed as usual.

“I think we can count that as another failure,” Darius said. “For now only. I’m sure he’ll come around later.”

“Come around?” Annabelle sneered. “He’s never going to ‘come around.’ You can’t believe that.”

“I do.”

“We’re bad people,” I said from where I sat on the ground.

“No, we’re not,” Annabelle said. “Maribelle and Waylon? Bad people. Isiah? Bad person. Us? We didn’t kill anyone. The worst we can be blamed for is self-defense. You told me the story Serenity. Ya’ll were leaving. She pulled the gun on you first.”

“As a part of the, ‘let’s be more secretive pact,’ I vote for us to not have this conversation right here. We’re attracting attention,” Darius said casually.

We were. Per usual. Students who were walking down the sidewalk were staring and our shouting had attracted the attention of people inside the dorm because a few faces were poking at us through the windows.

“Get up,” Annabelle said. She walked over to me and grabbed my hand, then pulled me to my feet. “We need to go see Willow. We’ll talk on the way there.”

“Did you at least tell him we were going to keep him safe?” I asked.

“I did. He didn’t want to hear it, but I told him we were going to do it anyway,” Darius explained. He started to walk down the path that led to the burnt-out barn. “He’s my friend though, whether he wants to be or not.”

“I didn’t think that’s how friends work,” I mumbled as Annabelle and I followed. I thought Annabelle would drop my hand after we started to walk, but instead, she laced her fingers with mine and was squeezing it tightly. I didn’t mind. I squeezed back.

“Like I said, he’ll come around,” Darius assured, looking at us over his shoulder. “I think it’ll be fine.”

_

Once we left the dorm behind, we all seemed to collectively agree that we weren’t going to continue the conversation about how in the wrong we were for almost killing Doctor Maye. I was okay with that. The further away we got, the more humiliated and angry I felt about the way I acted and the less keen I was to dive back into the topic.

Luckily, there were much more interesting things to talk about when we got to the field. Things like Willow, who was sitting in the center of the field, absolutely covered by crows. Two were perched on their shoulders, while another kept making attempts to land on their head. Others at the earth all around them, while the ones too cautious to approach sat on their perches and simply observed. It was as if Willow had gathered their own army.

When we approached, all of the crows except for the two that sat on Willow’s shoulders flew away, landing around the barn or on its roof. They watched our approach with undisguised interest. I’d never felt so seen.

“Taking the whole witch thing pretty seriously I see,” Darius said, still sounding completely at ease. It was like our conversation with Arif never happened. He was just…too at ease with everything. That along with the way he’d broken up Annabelle’s and I argument earlier, the way he’d shifted to become someone else, made me intensely curious. I wanted to know how the fuck he did it.

Willow scratched under the chin of one of the crows. “Yes. Madame Grace’s lessons have been good.”

“She told you to do this?” I asked. I broke away from Annabelle and squatted down next to Willow, then raised my hand slowly and tried to pet one of the crows. It glanced at my hand, then looked away, indifferent. I ran my fingers over its back. Its feathers were silkier than I expected them to be. I wondered if that was normal. This was the first bird I’d ever touched.

“No. This was all me. Like I said in the library, I’ve been training them.”

“Did you get all the new jewelry yourself too?” Darius asked.

“No, Madame Grace gave them to me. They are my reward for digging up Maribelle and Waylon’s grave. I get to keep them,” they said.

“All of them?” Annabelle asked.

“All of them.”

It was a lot to keep. They had two rings on each of their fingers, five or six bracelets on each of their writs, and a whole mess of necklaces. They’d even gotten their ears purred and two earrings forged into silver half-moons dangled down from their ears.

“Did she pierce your ears?” I asked.

“Yes, she did. I’m going to betting more in the future,” Willow said. “But we’re getting off track. That’s not what I want to talk about and that’s not why I called you here.”

“What are we here for then?” Annabelle asked.

Willow pulled out their phone. On it, was a picture of Joseph standing in Madame Grace’s shop. It wasn’t the best shot. I could only see half of his face, but it was unmistakably him.

“The crows have seen him before. Watch,” Willow said. They turned their screen back around and showed it to the birds on their shoulder and they started to freak the fuck out. They spread their wings aggressively and cawed, like cats raising their hackles. Willow dismissed the picture.

“That’s fucking cool, but where are you going with this?” Darius asked.

Willow whistled. It was a sharp, piercing noise, and the sound of it made four crows fly from the roof of the barn and land a few feet away from us. They stood at attention, looking at Willow for direction.

“The crows know him. They can warn us if he is ever close. I think I can train them to track him.”

“You’re being serious?” Annabelle asked.

“Of course.”

Annabelle tried to look at me, but I was too busy looking at the crows on Willow’s shoulder. They were so alert and their beady little eyes held more intelligence than I’d ever given them credit for.

“How does that work?” I asked.

Willow pulled a bracelet from their pocket. It was a simple thing made of small interlocked silver chains. The crows on their shoulder seemed to glare at it. Willow threw the bracelet across the field, then whistled again. All of the birds took off and dived for the bracelet. They squabbled over it for a few seconds, before one finally grabbed it and flew back to Willow, then deposited the bracelet in their waiting hand. Willow pet it, then reached into their other pocket and fed it a handful of birdseed.

“You’re a Disney princess. I love it,” Darius said, clapping his hands together softly.

“That’s…useful, but how are they going to warn us about Joseph?” Annabelle asked.

“They’ll follow us,” Willow explained. They pointed to the five crows that had settled down and had turned back to watch us. “One of them for each of you, two for me.”

“Okay, that’s badass, but that’s going to attract attention, right?” Darius asked. “There is no way we have a flock of crows trailing us and no one notices.”

“It’s better than being surprised by Joseph,” I said. “He said he wanted to ‘invite’ us to something and I’d like some advanced warning when he tries to give us the invitations.”

“Exactly. That’s why I need jewelry from each of you, so I can train the birds to follow and watch you. I doubt people will even notice. They won’t stray too close. They don’t know you like they know me.”

“Are you sure about that?” Annabelle asked.

“I’m certain.”

“It’s our best bet,” Darius said. “I’m willing to try.”

“Give me your jewelry then,” Willow ordered.

I pulled off a necklace and tossed it to Wilow. Annabelle and Darius took off a bracelet each and handed them over.

“Is anything else you wanted to tell us?” I asked.

“No. This was it.”

“So, the birds feel magic? Is that how this works?” Darius asked.

“They seem more sensitive to it than we are,” Willow said. “I don’t know if they feel magic, or if they feel something else. It’s impossible to know, but the result is the same, so I don’t care.”

“Could you spare one of your crows to watch Arif?” Darius asked.

“You’re going to make a crow follow him?” Annabelle asked. “Darius, you heard what he said. He doesn’t want shit to do with this, why the fuck would he want a magic crow to follow him?”

“It’s for his safety,” Darius said. “I’m not going to let him die because he wants to be stubborn So can you do it?” he asked Willow.

“They’re not my birds,” Willow replied.

“Sorry, could you train a crow,” Darius amended.

“I can try. I will need a personal item from him though.”

“Shit.” Darius looked back towards the dorms. “I might be able to get one from him,” he mused.

“You’re going to steal from Arif? Seriously Darius?” I asked.

“It’s for the greater good,” Darius replied cooly. “He won’t notice.”

“This is a bad idea,” Annabelle said.

“We’re all full of bad ideas, what’s one more?” he asked.

“No stealing,” I said. “We’re not doing that. If you want to ask him for one, do that, but I’m not going to let you steal from him.”

Darius smiled. “Okay.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Sure.”

I didn’t know whether I could believe him, but it wasn’t like the argument had anywhere else to go. I gave it up.

“How are you going to track Joseph if you don’t have one of his things?” Annabelle asked.

“I’ll have to get one. I haven’t figured how to do that yet,” Willow said.

“We might be able to get you one,” Annabelle said.

“We can?” Darius asked.

“Serenity is going to take us to Hope First. We’re going to talk to Bishop. He’s been talking to Joseph, so he might have something of his. Something we can bring back and give Willow,” Annabelle explained.

“So now we’re okay with stealing?” Darius asked.

“There is a difference between stealing from a church and stealing from one of our friends,” Annabelle said.

“There is?”

“Who is Bishop?” Willow asked.

“Head of Hope’s first,” I said. “But I doubt he has anything on him that’s Joseph’s, and even if he does, I don’t think we can walk in and take it.”

“He might give it to us if he’s scared,” Darius said.

“I doubt it.”

“We’ll try. It’s worth a shot. We’re going to talk to him anyway. This might be our in,” Annabelle said.

Never in my life did I think Bishop would be my in for anything more than suffering or misery, and yet here I was. It was harder to believe that we need him than it was to believe in magic, but here I was, believing it all the same.

“I guess we are going anyway,” I said.


	17. Everything That Rises - 2.5

“Why are there so many cars in the lot?” Darius asked.

“Probably because Bishop is preaching,” I said.

“He’s preaching?” Annabelle asked. She stopped on the sidewalk and glared at me. “You took us here in the middle of his service?”

“I had no idea he was having service today. It’s been years since I’ve gone and even longer since I’ve kept track.”

“It’s Saturday. Who preaches on a Saturday? I thought Sunday was Jesus day?” Darius asked.

“Every day is Jesus day when you’re Bishop,” I replied.

“Are we still doing this then? Walking through the front doors is not subtle and God only knows how long this is going to run for," Darius said.

“It says it right there,” Annabelle said, jabbing a finger at the big sign that sat on the front lawn of the church near the sidewalk. “Ends at 6. It’s 5:50 now. It’s only a ten-minute wait.”

“We can do this another day, we don’t have to push it,” I said. Bishop preaching was the perfect excuse to give up and go home.

“I want to do it today. We’re losing time if we don’t. I helped you, you have to help me now,” Annabelle insisted. "It's only fair."

"Your help was a lot easier to give."

"If you're not going in, then I'll take Darius and I'll do it myself."

"If you take me, you're not doing it yourself," Darius said.

"I don't care. If you don't want to go, I'll do it alone. We need this. I want it," Annabelle said.

That was the more important part of this. That much I was sure of. This had less to do with need and more to do with Annabelle getting tunnel vision. I thought about arguing more, than gave up. Worst came to worst, we'd argue with Bishop, and leave unsuccessful. It wasn't like I was talking to my mom anymore. Nothing too bad could come out of this.

“Alright, but if we’re doing in, we’re sneaking in. I want as few people to see us as possible," I said.

“How are you going to get us in there without getting caught?” Darius asked. “It looks crowded as fuck.”

I took in the church for the first time in a while and thought. It looked the same as I remembered it. It was plain and one of the better maintained buildings in Hope. The healthy and constant donations kept it that way. The lawn and bushes were neatly trimmed, and the building itself was strong and sturdy. It was made out of old weathered brick. Most of the windows were stained glass. I looked right above the front door of the church and spotted the one window that was out of place compared to the rest. It was too new. The colors too sharp. I was proud of that one. When I was 14, I’d put a rock through the original window, shattering it completely. No one ever found out it was me. At least, no one formerly accused me. Some of the looks Bishop gave me after it happened made me think he knew it was me, but he had no proof other than his broken window.

If the building was the same, which it appeared to be, then all my old routes for sneaking in and out of it probably still worked too. I didn’t want to go in, but I made my promise to Annabelle and I wasn’t going to back down now.

“I used to sneak in and out all the time. Follow me, I’ll get us to Bishop without anyone seeing,” I said.

I led Annabelle and Darius around the back of the church. There was a hiking trail that cuts through the woods and emptied into a park further up the street, but the trails were never my favorite place to hide. It took too long to get back from them to the church once service ended. My favorite hiding spot was behind the rows of holly bushes that were planted close to the church’s outer walls, forming a barrier of spiny green bush from the side of the church to the back door. The gap I used to enter them from and hide was still there, and I bladed my body sideways and wiggled into the bushes, flinching whenever the leaves cut into my skin.

“Seriously? This is your hiding spot?” Annabelle asked.

“Get in the bush. We're lucky no one was come out yet."

Darius and Willow followed me behind the row of holly bushes, then led them to where I used to wait for mass to end, behind a huge holly bush that had a big enough gap in it that you could just see the back door of the church.

“I used to sneak out and sit here on my phone until Bishop’s sermon ended. My parents could never find me, no one ever could” I whispered.

“Fond memories?” Darius asked.

“Not at all.”

“How long are we waiting here for?” Annabelle asked.

“Once service ends. Most people will leave through the front, but a few people do use the back. When it's clear, we’ll go inside, and I’ll take you to Bishop’s office. He always goes into it right after he’s done preaching. We can catch him then.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before,” Darius said.

“No, but I’ve hidden here enough to know how it works. This shouldn’t be too hard.”

Sure enough, a bit after six, people started to trickle out the back door. I held my breath until the sound of their voices faded. My heart started to beat faster. I hadn’t talked to Bishop in three years, and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I wasn’t going back now.

“We go?” Darius asked.

I gathered myself, and nodded. “Yeah, through the bush,” I said.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me!” Annabelle hissed.

I pushed m way through the bush, ignoring that leaves prodded me, and entered into the church. Annabelle and Darius were a step behind me. The back hall of the church was empty, just like I thought it would be. Straight ahead of us was the door that led to where the pulpit and pews were. To our right was a short hall that led to the bathrooms. To our left, was a short hall that led Bishop’s office. The door to his office was closed, but I knew he was in there.

“Be quiet,” I said, walking up to Bishop’s door.

“You gonna knock?” Darius asked.

I ignored him and led the three of us into his office, then shut the door and locked it as soon as we were all in. It was a relief to make it without anyone spotting us.

Now it was time for the hardest part.

“Matthew? Is that you?” Bishop asked.

Bishop sat in an office chair behind a huge wooden desk. Random papers were strewn all over it, concealing the top of it. Just like the church, Bishop was the same as I remembered him. He was a massive man. His gut pressed up against his desk, and his clothes were too tight for the amount of fat he carried on his body. He was dressed in a blue button up shirt with huge yellow sweat stains on the armpits, a blue and black striped tie, and a pair of dark slacks. All of it was way too tight on him. His dark, beady eyes reminded me of one of Willow’s crows. He was breathing hard and through his mouth as if he had run a marathon, but that was par for the course for Bishop. I was pretty sure he’d never figured out you could breathe your nose.

“You know a guy named Joseph. White dude looks like a Greek God, crazy look in his eye, dresses like a plantation owner. You know him right?” Darius smiled. “I know you do.”

Bishop frowned. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Friends of Serenity. Just answer the question, do you know him?”

Bishop glanced at Annabelle. “You’re an Ardent, right? Annabelle correct?”

“Answer the question,” she replied.

“I’m guessing you’re a student?” he said, turned back to Darius. “I suppose you are Matthew. My, my you look different. Your mom wasn’t kidding about those drugs you bought for yourself. You’ve properly destroyed your body. You hardly look like a man anymore. It’s a tragedy."

The anger I’d been holding back all day reared its head again and I had to resist the urge to lunge across his desk and claw Bishop’s eyes out. The way he was sitting in his chair, so smug at ease, infuriated me in a way I wasn’t ready for. I grabbed my necklace and forced myself to breathe. “Cut the bullshit and answer our questions.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I am feeling a bit uncomfortable. It feels like y'all are trying to intimidate me. I don’t appreciate that. I’ve done nothing wrong here.”

“So you’re saying you don’t know who Joseph is?” Annabelle asked.

“I know many Josephs, but I don’t know who you’re talking about specifically,” Bishop replied. “Honestly, this has me even more concerned for you than usual Matthew. They don’t seem like they’ve been a very good influence on you or-” He squinted at Annabelle. “Is it the other way around perhaps? Did Matthew convince you to come here?”

“We came here to talk about Joseph, that’s it,” Annabelle said. “Now tell us.”

“I can’t tell you something I don’t know anything about,” Bishop replied smugly. “Instead of asking me, I suggest you’d pray. God might give you some insight into what you seek, but I’m just a man. I’m nothing next to-”

“Stop, just stop,” I said, holding up a hand. “You’re lying.”

“You know Matthew, your mother talked to me earlier today. She said the police have been asking around about you, and then I saw a video of you being arrested. Seeing as you're out now, I guess you took care of that spot of trouble, but you look worse off for it. Much worse. That’s a nasty black eye you’ve got. Don’t you think it’d be a better idea to lay low instead of sneaking into my office and yelling at me about some man I don’t even know?”

This was everything I was afraid it would be. I didn’t know why I let myself let talked into coming in the first place. Of course, it was going to go like this. Annabelle and Darius didn’t know what they were saying when they came to me here. As soon as we left, I was going to tear into them like nothing else.

Right as I was about to turn around and leave, the hairs on the back of my neck stood at end. A second later, the room grew colder, and a dark, malicious feeling began to replace the heat. Annabelle and Darius felt it too. Darius had a grip on his necklace and was eying the door, while Annabelle was creeping away from it.

Bishop handled the feeling the worst. His face had gone pale and he’d sunk back into his chair. His beady eyes were dilated and huge. He wasn’t breathing. With an immense amount of satisfaction, I realized he was terrified. Nothing made me happier to see. I didn’t even care that Joseph was behind the door.

“Bishop? Are you in there? I’d like to talk to you about something,” Joseph called out. “It’s very important. There was also a lovely lady here who wants your attention as well. She said her name is Rose, but I told her to come back in an hour. I hope you don't mind.”

Bishop pressed his hands onto the bible on the table and his lips started to move in silent prayer.

“Bishop,” Joseph sang out. “I know you’re in there. I can feel you. Are you busy?” he asked. The door shook. Joseph tsked. “Locking your door is very unlike you. Who’s in there with you? I can feel them too. They have _presence_. What’s going on?”

Annabelle broke out of her stupor and darted around Bishop’s desk. She leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Bishop shook his head violently, but Annabelle didn’t pull away. She whispered something else, harsher this time, and gave him her best glare. Bishop’s hand clenched his arms rests so hard his knuckles turned white.

“You know it’s very rude to-”

“I’m sorry!” Bishop shouted. “I have three young people with me now. They’re very concerned about one of their friends. Very, very concerned. They’ve come to me for advice and I’m afraid I can’t talk now. It’s simply not possible. I promised them my time,” he gushed. All of his words blended together.

“Ah, so you are busy. I apologize for interrupting you. How rude of me,” Joseph said. He sighed loudly. “Whoever you are with do feel very strongly. I’m sure your conversation is very important, but I’m afraid mine is too. Are you sure you can’t talk let me in?”

Annabelle whispered something else. Bishop flinched, then side-eyed Annabelle, but she ceded no ground. He looked back to the door. “Allow me 15 minutes and I will speak to you. I promise. Just 15 minutes of privacy. I can’t- I can’t leave these folk without guidance. Please.”

“That’s not ideal Bishop, but I understand. You have a very important job. You said ten minutes?”

“N- no 15,” Bishop stammered.

“Ten it is! I’ll hold you to it,” Joseph said. I heard him start to walk away. A few seconds later, the ice that had taken the room and frozen it over started to thaw.

“You know, lying is a sin,” Darius said, breaking the silence. “You told us you didn’t know him, but it seems like you have a pretty intimate connection with one another. What would God say about that?”

Bishop’s eyes were still wide with fear, but without Bishop right outside his door, he seemed to recover some of his strength. “Y'all are going to get yourselves killed. That man is dangerous.”

“That’s why you’re going to help us, right?” Annabelle cut him off.

“Help you?” Bishop laughed. There was no humor in it. Only nerves and fear. “How can I possibly help you? What can I do?"

“You can start by telling us what Bishop wants with you,” Annabelle said.

Bishop opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it shut. He picked up the bible off his desk, then paged through it and started to read silently. Some of the fear that gripped him thawed away. He started to read faster and faster until he worked himself up into a silent fury. When he got to the end of whatever passage he was reading, he slammed his bible shut with a loud clap and hugged it to his chest. He tilted his head back, gave a final quick prayer for the ceiling, then looked back at Annabelle.

“If you work for him, why don’t you ask him yourself?” he asked.

He looked better prepared now, back on his game. Whatever prayers he’d sent up gave him the confidence to look at the three of us again without looking like a huge sack of flour.

“We don’t work for him dipshit. We’re enemies. Sounds like your enemies with him too. Let’s help one another.”

“If I help you and he finds out, God and I are going to meet sooner than I expected. I’d rather not,” Bishop replied.

Before I could think about what I was doing, I stepped up to Bishop’s desk, slammed my hands down on it, and glared down at him. “Here are your choices, you either tell us what we want to know, or we go and tell Bishop you were in here spilling all of his secrets. I think we both know what will happen if it comes to that.”

“You’re threatening me?” he asked.

“Yes. I am.”

He glared back at me defiantly, then glanced down, ceding our little staring contest. It made me feel good. Here I was, staring down the man who made my life a living hell for years, a man who had terrified me with his promises of hell and sin and death, and now he was afraid of me. It was almost addicted. I could feel it radiating off of him.

“If you’re his enemy, you can’t just talk to him. I’m not stupid," Bishop said carefully, coming back from his stupor of fear.

“Then don’t make enemies out of us too,” Darius said. “We’re not asking for a lot. Just for you tell us what you know.”

“And anything he might’ve given you,” Annabelle added. “You do that, we leave. Maybe we can even help you with him in the future.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Bishop asked. “If I tell you what you want to know, I have no cards left. You can all go tell Bishop what I said anyway, and where does that leave me? Matthew here would love to watch me suffer. He has a black heart.”

“No matter how much I hate you, I’ll keep my mouth shut. I keep my promises.”

“You didn’t keep any to your mother now did you?” he sneered. “I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, but I want nothing to do with it. Better the devil you know. Leave.”

“Bishop is helping to kill people. He’s helping to kidnap them too I think. Are you okay with being responsible for that? Are you?”

Bishop rolled his eyes. He wasn’t scared at all anymore. “I don’t care what Bishop does. It’s not my business.”

“You’re a man of God and you don’t even care that he might be killing people?” Darius asked. “What kind of priest are you?”

“One who does what’s best for his community. What Joseph does, no matter how disagreeable I might find it, is still necessary,” Bishop replied. “Now I’m telling you again, leave. I’m not talking to you.”

“If you don’t talk, we’ll do what Serenity said we would,” Darius said.

“What if I shouted for his help right now? What then?” Bishop asked. “If you're his enemies, he might reward me for it. What happens to y'all then?”

“You’re threatening to get us killed,” Annabelle said.

“You threatened to get me killed first,” Bishop replied.

“Let’s make this easier then. I won’t threaten to get you killed, I’ll just do it myself,” Darius said.

What the fuck? I wanted to turn around and ask him what the fuck he was talking about, but I knew if I showed a hint of doubt, it would ruin whatever plan Darius had worked out. If it was a plan at all. He sounded serious when he said he’d kill Bishop.

“You’re bluffing,” Bishop accused, but his voice shook. He wasn’t sure.

Darius slipped a hand into his pocket. Now I knew it was a bluff. Darius didn’t carry around a knife.

“I’m dead serious. We’re involved with Joseph, but you didn’t see us shaking in fear when he knocked did you? What does that say about us?” Darius asked.

“You’re not a killer,” Bishop said weakly.

“You want to try me?”

Bishop’s glanced at me, then smiled. “I’m calling for Joseph.”

My blood roared. Before he could say anything else, I did something I’d been wanting to for years. I lunged across the desk and wrapped my hands around his throat, then pressed my bracelets against his neck. “You’re not going to say shit,” I snarled. “You’re going to fucking tell us what we want or I’m going to kill you here. I swear to God!”

Bishop lifted his hands to pull mine away, but I pressed my bracelets in harder. Bishop’s eyes went wide and I squeezed tighter, panting as I tried to wring the life from him. I let all the anger I built up towards him over the years out, along with all my anger from today. I imagined it sinking into him, making him shake with fear like he had when Joseph knocked. I pictured him curled up into a ball, trembling with terror when he finally realized just how hot my anger burned and just how serious my threat was.

Bishop’s hands dropped to his side. His eyes went glassy. I pressed harder. My hands were starting to sweat and hurt, but I didn’t want to let go. I wanted to hurt him.

Someone wrapped their arms around me and hauled me back, tearing my hands off of Bishop’s neck. Bishop stumbled out of his chair, gasping for air. His back hit the wall, and then he slid down to the floor. He was trembling just like I’d imagined. It made me feel powerful in a way I’d never felt before. Seeing Bishop brought so low was one of the best things I’d ever seen in my life. Why did people say revenge didn't feel good?

Darius walked forward and squatted in front of Bishop. “So you know we’re not playing now, which is good. So how about we have that talk about Joseph now,” he said.

“I don’t- I don’t-”

“You don’t what?” Darius asked. “Come on, out with it. You don’t what?”

“I- I- I can’t think,” Bishop said. He closed his eyes and his lips started to move in prayer again.

“We’re not doing that this time,” Darius said. He raised a finger and pressed it against Bishop’s lips, stilling them. “Just tell us what you know, we’ll leave right after. I promise.”

Bishop blinked. Some awareness flowed back into him. He looked up at me. I glared back. My anger wasn’t going anywhere. If Annabelle wasn’t holding me still, I might’ve walked forward and tried to choke him again.

“His name is Joseph Sharpe,” Bishop said.

“Keep going,” Darius ordered.

“I- he’s a witch. He- he- I don’t, oh Lord save me,” Bishop whined.

“Talk and he will,” Darius said.

“His name is Joseph Sharp. He- he works as a landscaper. A family business. Uh, that’s all I know. About him. He’s private,” Bishop said.

“What does he want with you?” Annabelle asked.

“Information. I- I keep an eye on things. Tell him about rumors. He has a key here. Sometimes, he used the church for things. I don’t know what for. I don’t ask. He told me not to ask. That’s all I know.”

“What sort of rumors do you tell him about?”

“He um- the homeless people. That come to get food sometimes. About them. And others. Sinners. People who are bad for the town.”

“Bad for the town?” I growled. Spittle flew from my mouth. “You’re complicit. You’re giving him targets to kill and kidnap, then giving him a place to hide them!”

“I don’t know what he does!” Bishop said desperately. “I don’t know!”

“That all you know?” Darius asked. “You’re not lying, are you? It’s a sin if you are," he winked.

“I’m not. That’s it,” Bishop swore.

“Has Joseph given you anything?” Annabelle asked.

“Little things. I don’t use them though.”

“Give us one.”

“The fancy pen. In the cup. He gave that to me. I don’t use it. Take it.”

Annabelle did. She plucked it out of the cup, then put it into her pocket. “Darius, let’s go.”

“If you say anything we’ll be back,” I threatened. “I- I’ll come back for you. I will. Don’t think I won’t. You don’t know me like you think you do. You’re a monster, Bishop.”

“You’re crazy,” Bishop said. “You’ve lost your mind. God can’t save you now.”

“If you say God-”

“Let it go!” Annabelle said. “You can vent later. We have to go.”

I didn’t want to let it go, but Darius was backing away from Bishop and we were running out of time. Annabelle unwrapped her arms from around me, then grabbed my wrist hard. We walked out the door. The back hall was empty. No signs of Joseph. We sprinted to the back exit and burst outside.

“What now?” Annabelle asked.

The memory of me choking Bishop popped back into my head, making my anger burn even hotter. “I want to go back in there and finish choking Bishop,” I said.

“We’re not doing that. Joseph is there. We’re getting away,” Annabelle replied.

“I want to go back.”

“The trail we passed. We’ll go through it,” Darius said, hurrying around the church.

Annabelle tugged me behind him, then started to take off my jewelry as we walked, shoving every piece into my pocket. She got all the bracelets on my right wrist off, then moved on to my left. With every piece she removed, my anger drained a bit. When she got all the bracelets off my left wrist, it became an ember. When all I had left was the brass bracelet Madame Grave had given all of us, I was no longer mad at all. It felt like there was an empty space inside of me where my anger should’ve been, but where there was now nothing.

“Better?” Annabelle asked.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Can I let go of you or are you going to run back there and get yourself killed?” Annabelle asked.

“You can let go,” I said.

She released me and I shook out my wrist. I pictured choking Bishop again, but there was none of the anger anymore. There was just an observation that I’d done it. I tried to think of some of the things he’d said to me, but they didn’t make me mad either.

That worried me.

I started to flick through all my memories of Bishop, all of his toxic sermons and poisonous words, but couldn’t make myself upset at any of them. It was the same feeling I’d had when I got out of jail. The sense that they were all things that happened, but had happened to someone else. I thought of my mom and all the shitty things she said to me, about my dad and his refusal to even try to understand me, but came up blank there too. There wasn’t a trace of the anger I should’ve felt.

“Fuck,” I cursed, feeling my panic start to rise. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“What’s wrong?” Darius asked, looking at me over his shoulder. We were halfway up the trail now, almost to the park. I was glad. I wanted to sit down.

“I- I fucked up,” I said.

“Yeah, we noticed,” Annabelle said.

“My anger is gone. It’s- I lost it. I burned through it like Madame Grace warned us about I-’

“You didn’t. You’re fine,” Annabelle said. She tapped her pocket. “You stuffed into your jewelry somehow. Fuck if I know how, but it’s there. You’re fine.”

I didn’t feel fine.

The park was almost empty when we got to it. A few kids played on the old jungle gym while their parents watched, but they were at the other end of the park. There was no one using the field that took up the bulk of the park. Annabelle led us over to a bench and we all sat. She dug out one of my bracelets, then handed it to me.

“Put it on,” she ordered through gritted teeth.

I slid the bracelet back on. A lick of heat filled the void inside of me. I imagined Bishop again and felt the tiniest spark of anger, then felt relieved. “It’s back. Give me another. I can handle it,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Darius asked. “Because you were extremely pissed back there. It was kind of hot.”

“Not the time,” Annabelle snapped. She dug out another bracelet and handed it to me.

I put it on and felt more anger bubble up. It was raw and harsh, but it was still good to feel. “I’m good. It’s back.” I pulled my knees up to my chest and put my head on my knees. Relief like nothing else coursed through me. I was fine. I was going to be fine.

“Good, then we can talk about what the fuck happened back there,” Annabelle said. She got up from the bench and moved in front of me, putting her hands on her hips. “When I said we should go talk to Bishop, I didn’t mean we should threaten to kill him. That wasn’t part of the plan.”

Darius held up his hands. “It wasn’t perfect, but we got what we needed. He would’ve done the same to us. He told us he would’ve.

“If he tells people we threatened him-”

“He has no proof,” I said.

“You bruised his neck.”

“No one saw us there. I made sure. Even if he wanted to say something, he won’t. He’s scared of Joseph.”

Annabelle pinched the bridge of her nose. “This was a fucking disaster. The two of you fucked up hard.”

A tiny bit of anger made itself known. I latched onto it. I never wanted to let it go, never wanted to lose my emotion again. “Don’t blame is for this. You’re the one who wanted me to go. This was your idea.”

“I didn’t think you were going to do what you did!”

“I don’t regret it. I was right when I said he deserved it.”

Annabelle dragged her hands down her face. “That’s-”

She froze. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at end again. All three of us looked to the trail.

“We need to go. We’ll talk somewhere else,” Darius said quickly. “I’m not staying to find out how Joseph feels about us.”

_

The waffle house was quiet. The people who in it gawked at when we entered, but quickly lost interest when all we did was shuffle to a table and order food. Even with our bracelets and how overdressed we were, we probably weren’t even close to the strangest thing that had happened in the restaurant.

I wanted to be annoyed at the initial gawking, but being annoyed meant I had to be angry, and there wasn’t enough of that inside of me to direct at some random staff. The jewelry I’d put back on did a poor job of filling the void still inside me. I wanted to put all my jewelry back on and see if I could feel normal again, but doing that in public was a no go. We couldn’t go back to Annabelle’s either. Not until we were sure Joseph was no longer tailing us.

“So what now?” Darius asked. “We know some of what we need to about Joseph, so what do we want to do with it.”

“Tell Madame Grace. She can make a game plan. I’ll give Willow the pen too and we’ll see what they can do with it,” Annabelle replied.

“You know, she might send us to go deal with him. We’re kind of her pawns if you haven’t noticed.”

“I said I’d take errands from her, not suicide missions,” Annabelle replied.

“Fair.”

Our waitress came over and dropped off our food. We started to eat. I barely tasted what was in front of me. I was too focused on the missing void within me and the memory of me choking the life out of Bishop. It should’ve disturbed me like the memories of being dragged through jail did, but instead it was the opposite. A dark, twisted part of me had enjoyed it.

“Serenity, what’s your take?” Darius asked.

I looked up from my food. Darius was smiling at me. He looked perfectly at ease.

“What?” I said dumbly.

“You think we should go tell Madame Grace?”

“Sure. That’s fine, but not- not now. Not when I’m…like this,” I said.

“Like this?”

“Yes, like this,” I said, gesturing at myself. “I’m still missing my anger. I don’t want to go back to her like that. She’ll know.”

“So what? We work for her, who gives a shit?” Annabelle asked.

“I don’t want to advertise my fuck up before I see if I can fix it myself, okay? Just let me try. You two can go. Just drop me off at your house.”

“No,” Annabelle said.

“No?”

“I’ll call you a cab. Driving back and forth is a waste and I’m not going to let you fucking walk. Not with Joseph out there. You’re out of your mind.”

“Glad that’s sorted out,” Darius said. “So Serenity, how’re your classes going?”

I raised my eyebrows. “My classes? Really?”

“Yeah. Your classes. You know, the thing you pay to go to? Those ones. How are they.”

It wasn't the sort of conversation I was interested in right now, but I entertained it anyway if only to indulge him. “Fine, I think. We haven’t done much.”

“Neither have we. Stuff is still pretty slow. I don’t think my professors give a shit about teaching. All of them look like they wanted to be somewhere else,” he said. Darius shook his head. “Guess that’s not too surprising.”

“Yeah.”

Darius nudged Annabelle. “And you?”

“Can we not?” she said.

“Can we not what?”

“Can we not pretend everything is fine? I’m thinking.”

“More like ruminating,” Darius said.

Annabelle put her fork down and turned to meet Darius’s eyes. “You want to talk? Fine. Let’s fucking talk. Darius, do you worry about _anything_?” she asked.

“I do,” he said.

“Like what? What do you worry about?”

Darius hummed to himself and took a drink of his coffee. “The usual stuff.”

“Like what? Can you name something?” Annabelle pushed.

“Well, I worry about what Joseph and Bishop are up to,” he said.

”Do you though? Because it doesn’t seem like you do.”

“Am I not upset enough for you?”

“Yeah. You’re not.”

Darius laughed. “Come on, this is stupid. Just because I’m not freaking out doesn’t mean I’m not worried.”

“I don’t believe you,” Annabelle said.

“What do you believe then?”

I stopped trying to eat at all and watched Darius. He was still calm, but he tightened up ever so slightly. His expression wasn’t as light, and his smile seemed a bit more forced. Annabelle was poking at something sensitive. I had no plans on stopping her. She’d noticed the same thing I had.

“I don’t think you give a shit about Joseph, or Bishop, or Madame Grave, or any of it. Everything rolls off your back,” Annabelle accused.

Darius gave her an unimpressed look. “If I didn’t care, then why am I doing any of this?” he replied.

“I’d like to know that too.”

“Have you considered the obvious conclusion? That I do care?” Darius asked.

“I have, but it doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

Darius shrugged. “Can’t help you there. I think my actions speak louder than my words.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Interesting theory, but I don’t know if it holds any weight, Annabelle. I think you’re getting a bit to into conspiracy.” Darius stood up. “I’m gonna pee real quick. Don’t leave without me,” he said, then walked away.

“Got him,” Annabelle murmured. “He thinks I don’t see him.”

“You think he doesn’t care?” I asked.

“Yeah. I fucking do. Do you not?”

I looked at the door Darius had gone into. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But does that even matter? Why do you care? He’s helping us, he waited for me in jail, and he hasn’t fucked us over at all. If that’s not caring, then what is?”

Annabelle scowled. “Why are you defending him?”

“Because he didn’t do anything wrong.”

Annabelle put her fork down. “He did. Both of you did. Yeah, I brought you there, but you two almost killed someone. If I didn’t pull you off Bishop, you would’ve fucking killed him. And Darius would’ve let you. This is the second time you-”

“Fuck off,” I said with a lick of heat. I didn’t have any anger to spare, even though that’s what I wanted to be right now. “You weren’t there at Doctor Maye’s. You took the easy job and let us do the work when the plan was your idea in the first place. You don’t do any of the hard work. You pulled the same shit today actually. You made me go, and you watched me and Darius get what you wanted out of Bishop, and now you’re going to sit here and bitch at me?”

Something mean and vicious flashed over Annabelle’s eyes. “You know what? I think you’re only defending him because you wanted to kill Bishop and you’re pissed I made you stop. I think you liked hurting Bishop. I saw it in your face. You were smiling when you were fucking killing him. Did you smile like that when Elise almost killed Doctor Maye, Serenity?”

Annabelle glared at me, waiting for an answer. I had none. There was no anger to leverage, no curses or insults I could think up. There was only pain. It felt like Annabelle had gutted me and was staring down at my entrails with disgust for all the things I was, used to be, and ever wood. There wasn’t a hint of kindness on her face.

She was rejecting me.

At least I was used to that.

“Call me a cab. I’m leaving,” I said as I stood up.

“You’re not-”

“I am,” I said. I got out my wallet and threw money on the table to cover my meal. “Call it.”

Darius came out of the bathroom and stopped when he saw us. Our waitress cleared her throat. “Is there a problem y'all?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

“No,” Annabelle said without looking. “We’re fine. We’re just leaving.” She picked up my money and held it out to me. “I can pay. Take it.”

“Give me my jewelry back,” I said.

“What?”

“My jewelry. Give it back.”

“You can’t put it on,” Annabelle said.

“I’m not going to. I just want it back.”

The waitress and cook, along with the other people in the restaurant, were openly staring now. Annabelle quietly seethed in her chair, but then pulled a fistful of my jewelry from her pocket and set it on the table. She was enraged, only slightly less angry than I had been when I choked Bishop, but somehow, she was holding it back. I stepped forward, took off my hat, and put the jewelry inside of it. Touching it made me feel out of control.

“We’re leaving,” Annabelle growled. She got up and stalked to the door. “I’ll call your cab.”

“You good?” Darius asked.

“Yeah,” I lied.

Darius wrapped his arm around my shoulder and guided me out the door. “What’d you say to her that’s got her panties in such a twitch.”

I leaned into Darius. He was warm and comfortable, but I still would've preferred to find a dark, lonely corner and squirrel myself away there.

“She did it to herself,” I replied.

We stepped outside. Annabelle was leaning on Darius’s car in the parking lot. She didn’t look at us when she asked, “would you have done it?”

“Done what?” Darius asked.

“Shut the fuck up. I’m not talking to you.”

Darius’s smile dropped. “What the fuck? What’s your deal? Why are you being like this all of the sudden? Did something crawl up your ass and die?”

Annabelle opened her car door. “I called you a cab. It’ll be here in ten minutes. Do _not_ walk back to my house Serenity.” She got into her car, then slammed the door shut. A second later, she had it running and rolled down the window. “Darius. Get in. We’re going to Madame Grace’s.”

“You’re leaving Serenity alone.”

“Please,” I said, extracting myself from under Darius’s arm. “I want to be alone. Please just go.”

Darius’s face wrinkled with concern, but it wasn’t quite right. There was something ever so slightly off about it. I looked away.

“Don’t go anywhere then. Joseph is still out there. We’ll make it quick. I promise.”

“Okay.”

_

There was a cop car at the top of Annabelle’s driveway and two cops standing on the porch, speaking into the darkness of the house. They must’ve heard my approach because one of them looked back at me. I stopped walking. It was Officer Black. His partner turned and looked at me, revealing officer McGarth.

God. Fucking. _Damnit_.

“Mr-

“Serenity. Call me Serenity. That’s the only name I have.”

Officer McGarth cleared his throat. In the dying light of the day, they were looked more like wrathful spirits than officers of the law.

“That one is fucking my sister,” someone hissed through the door. “I know she is. She’s here all the time.”

“Yeah, she’s always with that black guy we were telling you about,” another voice added. I only knew it was different because it was slightly less angry.

“Black guy?” Officer Black asked.

“Yeah. We told you about him. He’s flamboyant.”

“He wears suits?” Officer McGarth asked.

“Yes,” the angrier one said. I caught the hint of that obnoxious raised voice and figured out that it must’ve been Claire talking.

“Interesting,” McGarth said. He turned back to me. “Is that true Serenity? Are you dating Miss Ardent?”

That was a can of worms that I hadn’t put nearly enough thought into. I didn’t want to either. If I thought about it too hard, I was afraid it would fall apart.

“No comment.”

“What are you doing here?” Black asked. “Have you been staying here?”

“Yes, she’s been here for weeks. I’ve already told you this! Are you even listening?” Bailey asked.

“We’re covering our bases. Relax,” Officer McGarth said.

“I’m going inside,” I said and walked up the porch. I tensed as I got closer to the cops, but I knew they didn’t have anything on me. I’d gotten acquitted or whatever once. That didn’t help with my fear though. I didn’t want to get arrested again. I didn’t want to go back to jail. Ice gripped my heart, but I refused to back down. I wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of seeing me scared.

“No, I don’t want you in here,” Bailey said.

“Yeah, you’re not welcome,” Claire agreed.

I was glad I couldn’t be mad right now because if I could be, I’d have said or done something I regretted. “Annabelle said I could.”

“Well she’s not here and we say you can’t. If you come in, we’ll get the cops to drag you out like the trash you are. Isn’t that right?” Bailey sneered.

“Yes. If you don’t want Serenity on your property, they have to go,” Officer McGarth said.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. They were going to arrest me. I needed Annabelle. Why had I gotten in that fight with her? What if she ignored me? My hands shook as I pulled out my pocket and found her number. “I’ll call Annabelle and ask her then,” I said, my voice breathier than I would’ve liked.

“Good, we wanted to talk to her actually,” Officer McGarth said.

I called. Annabelle picked up on the first ring. “Serenity? What’s going on? Are you okay? Why the fuck are you calling me?” Annabelle demanded.

“The police are at your house. Your sisters are talking to them and don’t want to let me in,” I explained quickly.

“They’re what?” Annabelle shouted. I winced and pulled the phone away from my ear, but it didn’t need to be closer for me to hear her say, “they’re fucking police at my house right now?”

“Yeah. I’m standing in front of them.”

“Put me on speaker.”

I did.

“Can they hear me?” she asked.

“We can,” Officer Black said.

“Good. I’ll say this once then. I don’t want to talk to any of you. I want you to fuck off and never bother me again. If you’re not arresting me or giving me a subpoena, I don’t give a fuck.” She paused, then said, “Bailey, Taylor, if you don’t let Serenity in, I’m calling mom and dad.”

“We already did,” Bailey shouted. “They want to talk to you. They think we’re right.”

“Bullshit. Serenity, don’t go anywhere. I’ll call you back,” Annabelle said, then she hung up.

“Well, she’s rather hostile. You been saying mean things about Mr. Matthew?” Officer Black asked.

“Not my name.”

“Do you have any more questions?” Claire asked eagerly. “Because I can tell you whatever else you want to know.”

“You’re sure?” Bailey asked.

“We’re sure. Thank y'all for your time,” Officer McGarth said.

How long had they been here? How much did Claire and Bailey even know? They were asleep most of the time, but I didn’t put it past eavesdrop. The ice around my heart spread through me, all the way to the tips of my fingers. I shivered.

“Are you going to do something? Aren’t you going to arrest her?” Claire asked.

“We don’t plan on making any arrests right now, we’re just continuing an investigation,” Officer Black said.

“Thanks for wasting our fucking time them,” Bailey growled. She slammed the door shut. I heard it lock.

“Friendly group,” McGarth intoned.

My phone started to ring again. I picked it up. “You’re going to have to wait. We have a problem. I’ll tell you about it when I’m back. Just sit tight and don’t go fucking anywhere.”

“Tell them I can say,” I said.

“Put me on speaker.” I did, then held up the phone to Officer Black and McGarth could hear it more clearly. “You’re good,” I said.

“You two, get off my property. Serenity can stay, but I want you off. I’ll file a lawsuit for trespassing if you don’t.”

“You know, you don’t help yourselves when you’re mean to us,” Officer Black said. “It makes you look bad.”

“Don’t care. I said what I said. Either get off now or I’m suing you.”

“You’re bluffing,” Officer McGarth said.

“Try me.”

Officer Black nudged McGarth. “We’ll leave. We have what we need. She’s not going to talk to us.”

“Damn right.”

“You have a great day,” Officer McGarth drawled.

Annabelle hung up.

“Your friend sounds like she has something to hide,” Black said.

“She said to leave.”

“Well, we can’t let you stay either. Miss Taylor and Bailey seemed clear about that,” McGarth said.

“Annabelle said it was fine,” I replied.

“This is a classic conflict of interest, but let me tell you how this is going to work,” Officer Black said. He turned towards me. His eyes were hard. “If you stay, we’ll have to arrest you again. For trespassing. The residents of this house made it very clear they didn’t want you here.”

A fresh wave of fear washed over me. It was enough to make me back off. They’d already arrested me once on a shoddy warrant. There was no reason to think they wouldn’t arrest me off some bullshit again. I walked back down the porch and down Annabelle’s long, winding driveway, then took a seat on the curb next to Annabelle's mailbox. I wished I had still had my cigarettes. I’d have killed for one now. Stupid fucking pact with Darius. I was regretting it more and more each day.

The cops’ cruiser pulled down Annabelle’s driveway, then stopped at the bottom. Officer Black rolled down his window and waved at me. I glared at them at him. There was no real anger behind it. I felt like an actor in a play. Officer Black laughed, and then pulled out onto the street, leaving me alone. I continued to glare at the car. That tiny little bit of anger in me wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted the rest of it. I was done feeling like something was missing. I needed to fix it.

I took a bracelet out of my hat and gripped it tightly in my hand. I shuddered as a bolt of raw anger forced its way back to me. It felt like I’d grabbed hot coal, but I refused to let go. My fuck up was something I could fix. I knew it was. My anger had gone into my jewelry. Some of it must’ve gone into Bishop too, but what I’d locked away in my necklaces and bracelets, I could get back.

The alternative was unthinkable.

When the bracelet stopped making me want to scream, I slid it back on, then pulled out a necklace and repeated the process. It was miserable. I went from feeling like I was missing something, to being overwhelmed with anger, then back to missing something when I adjusted to holding whatever piece of jewelry I was, all in the span of thirty seconds. It was exhausting, but it was working. The void inside me was knitting closed. I just needed a few more stitches.

I put another bracelet on, then bit into my hand as the strongest surge of anger yet raced through me. When it subsided, my hand had a deep bite mark in it that trickled with blood. The pain was easy to ignore when I noticed that the void had been stitched over and filled once again.

My anger was back

It was weak compared to the rest of my emotions, but I didn’t care. It was still back. I hadn’t fucked myself permanently. My hands shook as I put on the rest of my Jewel. My anger burned hotter and hotter until it was almost impossible to feel anything else. I stopped being relieved that it was back, and started to be worried that it would never leave. I curled up into a tight ball, put my head on my knees, and shook.

 _It’s like a panic attack. Just ride it out,_ I thought.

I stayed in my nice, tight ball, twitching occasionally until I heard the sound of the car grinding to a halt in front of me. I looked up. It was Darius’s. The passenger side window rolled down and Annabelle looked out at me, her face grim. “What the fuck is your deal?” she asked.

I lifted my hand and shook it, allowing my jewelry to clank together. “It’s back,” I whispered.

“It’s what?”

“I can be pissed again that’s what! Fuck, you were there! What the fuck do you mean ‘what?’”

“Yup, it’s back,” Darius said. “You might want to hold on tight for a bit. Annabelle’s parents are being annoying and I don’t think you screaming at them is gonna make what we’re going to have to do easier. You’re gonna need to be calm for it.”

I stumbled to my feet. “What the fuck is their problem?”

“Get in,” Annabelle said.

“I can walk.”

“Just get in,” Annabelle ordered.

That wasn’t happening. Not with the haughty, nasty way she was looking at me. My anger flared.

“Fuck you!” I snapped, then started to stalk up the driveway.

“Jesus Christ what the fuck is your problem!” Annabelle shouted.

“You are!”

Annabelle got out of the car and ran in front of me. “Stop,” she ordered.

“Fuck you.”

She dragged a hand through her hair. “Alright. I’m sorry, okay? I was a bitch, you’re right, my bad. Now can you calm the fuck down?”

“No!”

Annabelle walked over to a patch of grass on her driveway. “You want to fight? Let’s fight. I’m done screaming.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Darius said. He shut off the car and got out. “Y'all are gonna fight? Right now? How is that going to help things?”

“I’m going to fix this problem,” Annabelle growled. “You’re pissed off at me? Fine. Be pissed, but we have a problem we need to deal with and I can’t tell you what it is like this. So either get over here and fight me or get the fuck over it or are you too fucking scared?” she taunted me.

I ran at her. It was stupid and impulsive but I didn’t care. Annabelle didn’t have time to prepare before I caught her legs in a low tackle and brought her to the ground. I thought that was going to be the end of it, but she rolled me back over and tried to pin my arms next to my head. I knocked her off me and tried to reclaim my position.

We ended up in a writing pile of grabbing hands, curses, and hissing. My bruise hurt, I could taste blood in my mouth, and I was breathing hard, but I didn’t stop. I was going to win. Annabelle, for all of her sharp words and harsh glares, was a terrible fighter. She was short and light, and it was obvious she’d never been in a fight before. She had no idea what she was doing.

I did.

After a minute of scrambling, I ended up back on top of her and pinned her wrists down beside her head. I sat low on her hips, pinning them down and preventing me from bucking her off, then pressed my chest against hers so she couldn’t try to roll me off either.

“I fucking win!” I growled. “Fuck you!”

She glared up at me. I glared back. Our faces were so close. It was the most contact we’d ever had with each other.

Then Annabelle surged forward and kissed me.

I didn’t see it coming. Annabelle took advantage of my surprise and rolled us back over so she was on top. She grabbed my wrists, pinned me, then pulled away and looked down at me triumphantly. She was gorgeous. Her blond hair was a halo of gold in the dying light and messy on her head. Dirty was smeared on her face, and her lips were bruised. The jeans and shirt she wore were dirty, and I’d never seen her look so furious in my life.

“I fucking win. Now calm the fuck down and stay still!”

I did. I couldn’t think of doing anything else. My chest heaved and my anger started to drain. It was still too much, I was still on a hair-trigger, but I was calming down slowly. I shut my eyes and just breathed.

“y'all good?” Darius asked.

“We’re fine.”

“Alright. I’m gonna go park. Y'all…work that out,” he said.

I heard the car turn over again, then move up the driveway. I opened my eyes. Annabelle was still looking down at me, but her glare had softened.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“No.”

“How not okay are you?”

I thought about it, then gave my best attempt at a shrug. “I don’t know.”

“If I let you up, are you going to punch me?”

“No.”

“Good,” Annabelle said. She released my wrists. “Good.”

She didn't off of me. She stayed straddling my waist. Her eyes darkened and her fury was replaced by something hungry. Heat rushed low in my belly, then moved lower and I just couldn’t. Not now. Things were still too raw and fucked and complicated and—

“Relax yourself or I’m going to pin you again,” Annabelle ordered.

That wouldn’t have been that bad. I couldn’t make any mistakes or do anything stupid if I couldn’t move. Being pinned down, in general, wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was, at least when Annabelle was the one doing it. I blushed hard and looked away. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about how much I liked Annabelle pinning me. Not at all.

“Get off,” I said.

She did. She stood up, then offered me a hand, and pulled me to my feet. I looked down at my dress. It was stained with dirt and grass. I hoped it would come out.

“My parents got billed for the hours Miss Burns spent on you. She’s not cheap. They wanted to know what happened, but they didn’t ask me first. They called her first, then talked to my sisters, and then waited for me to call them.”

“Okay?” I said. I was doing my best to follow what she was saying, but I was so tired and my emotions were still doing pirouettes and leaps inside of me, making it hard to listen.

“When I called them to bitch about Claire and Bailey, they asked who you and Darius were and if what they’ve been hearing was true. I couldn’t lie to them. They already fucking knew. Now they want to meet you. Both of you.”

“So let’s get you cleaned up,” Darius shouted. He was almost at the top of the driveway. “We have an hour before we’re supposed to video call them!”


	18. Everything That Rises - 2.6

“This is the best we can come up with?” I asked.

We sat in Annabelle’s living room. Annabelle had gotten changed into a white dress, while I threw on a pair of shorts and t-shirt. I left my makeup on and let Annabelle touch up on it. She’d tried even harder to make my black eye invisible, but it wasn’t enough makeup in the world to conceal it entirely.

Annabelle’s plan considered that a good thing.

“Yes. It was the best I could do. My sisters and the bill made it hard to lie. I did my best.”

“So you decided that selling me as a charity case was the way to go?”

“What would you have said?” Annabelle asked. “They’ve heard of you before. The only lies I can tell are ones they can’t fact check.”

“Why couldn’t we be dating and Darius be the charity case?”

“Because I didn’t get arrested or punched,” Darius said. “Plus, straight people. You know how straight people work.”

“Don’t your parents know you dated Elise?”

“Fuck no, and I’m not going to come out to them either. Just swallow your pride. I’ll make this a quick conversation.”

“Why is that I always have to swallow my pride? This is fucking bullshit. I hate playing the victim,” I complained.

Annabelle sighed. “I know. I don’t want to do this. I don’t know why they give a fuck about any of this considering the shit they let Claire and Bailey get away with, but here we are,” Annabelle said

“We’ll make it worth your while,” Darius said. He smiled and his eyes went dark. It was the same sort of look Annabelle had when she was on top of me. The same desire and heat. “You’ve had a bad day.”

“A bad life,” I corrected.

“I can’t promise to take away the stress of your life, but I’ll take a stab at it. I love a project.”

“Stop flirting,” Annabelle ordered.

Darius planted a kiss on Annabelle’s cheek, then ducked out of the way when she tried to hit him. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you be lonely.”

“We have a minute before we have to call. Stop,” Annabelle said. She looked at me. “You talked to Mary today right? Pretend you’re talking to her again. We’re trying to sell something here.”

“This isn’t remotely the same.”

“Act like it is anyway,” Annabelle replied, then opened up her laptop. “Darius put your arm around me. Serenity, scoot to the side a bit. They’re going to ask you questions. Answer them, but give away as little as possible.”

“Are your parents the police?” Darius joked.

“Worse.”

Before either of us could ask what that meant, Annabelle’s parents called. A box to answer the video call popped up on Annabelle’s laptop. She took a deep breath, gave a final scowl at her computer, then answered.

A man and a woman who looked eerily like Annabelle popped to life on the screen. The woman was a bit taller and older, but she had the same long, golden blond hair, delicate features, and cold blue eyes Annabelle did. The man was handsome and clean shaven with a strong jaw and hair so blond it was almost white. He smiled, revealing teeth that were way too white and way too straight. They were in what looked like a fancy hotel room, and they were both wearing well tailored suits.

“Annabelle! It’s nice to see you,” the man said. He had a thick Boston accent. It was hard to keep my face straight. Annabelle didn’t sound a thing like them. She didn’t have much of a southern accent, less thick than mine, but it was still there in a few words.

“Yes, you don’t call us enough,” the woman added. She had the same accent as her husband. She looked at me and Darius and gave us a sharp smile. “I’m Jeane, Annabelle’s mother. This is my husband Greg,” she said, gesturing to the man. “We’ve heard a lot about you. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

I couldn’t tell how they felt about us. Their body language was purposefully neutral. They held themselves like Annabelle did when she wanted something. Was that where Annabelle had learned it from? It was an uncomfortable thought. My parents were bad, but their attempts at manipulation were blatant and thinly veiled. If Annabelle’s parents were anything like her, then I could only imagine the damage they could do to a kid.

“My name is Darius Williams, it’s lovely to meet y'all,” Darius said. “I wish I could shake your hands. Gorgeous suits by the way. You’ve got yourself a good tailor.”

Annabelle’s parents preened. “Thank you. You must be Annabelle’s new boyfriend,” Greg said. He leaned closer to the camera. “You’re handsome and by the looks of it, you have good taste. Your jewelry is…mm a bit tacky though. Where did you get that stuff from? A flea market?”

Darius smiled and shrugged. “It doesn’t go with the outfit I’ll admit, but it’s a stylistic choice. It leaves an impression, don’t you think?”

“You don’t need to look tacky to leave an impression. You’d do a fine job without it. Take me for example. I don’t need to make myself look like a fool to gain respect.”

“I’m not sure I could compete with you, Greg-”

“Sir,” Greg corrected. He smiled back at Darius. “I insist. Only my wife calls my Greg and sometimes not even her.” He laughed. I wasn’t sure at what. It didn’t sound like a joke.

“Of course, but as I was saying, I don’t think I could compete with you. You’ve been in the game too long.”

“The game?” Greg frowned. “What’s the game?”

He had to be fucking with us. Annabelle’s parents looked like they were in their mid-fifties. It wasn’t like Darius was saying poggers, but Greg still looked genuinely confused and even a bit offended.

“You’ve been in the world longer, sir. I have a long time before I could hold a candle to you,” Darius said, laying it on thick.

“Not all of us can burn as brightly as I do Darius, but I’m sure you’ll do your best. It’s all you can do.”

I was glad I’d never met Annabelle’s parents before. I’d have argued with them and made them hate me in less than a minute. I’d have done the same now if that didn’t mean getting booted out of Annabelle’s house.

“Now Darius, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself? Why did you choose to go to GCU? Why not a HBCU?” Jeane asked.

What the fuck. Was she being serious? I resisted the urge to blanch or glance at Darius. I'd let him handle it. It was about him in the first place, and if I opened my mouth, I might shoot myself in the foot.

“Oh I saw GCU’s campus and I knew it was for me. I just connected to it immediately, there was no other choice,” Darius said. If Annabelle’s parents bothered him, he didn’t show it in the slightest. “Plus, I met your daughter here, so of course it was worth it,” he said, then planted a kiss on Annabelle’s cheek.

“Oh, you two adorable. I never thought my daughter would fall for someone like you, but I can understand now, you have charm,” Jeane said.

“Yes, he’s very sweet,” Annabelle said.

“He is, but I’d like to hear from your other friend now,” Jeane said. “They haven’ spoken yet.” Her eyes flicked to me. “You’re Serenity, right? You’ve been friends with our daughter for a while now as I’ve been told?” she asked.

The two of them seemed almost mystified by my existence, as if I was an exotic animal they were seeing for the first time. Did I really look that bad? I’d felt almost nice today, but the way they were looking at me shredded some of the confidence I’d built up.

“Hi y'all, I’m Serenity. It’s great to finally meet you two.”

“Yes, it is. You’re friends with that Mexican girl Annabelle associates herself with, aren’t you? I remember Claire saying something about that years ago.”

Wow, they were out of date. It was almost impressive. How long had it been since Annabelle had talked to them last?

“Elise,” Annabelle said. “That’s Elise.”

“Elise! Yes, that’s the one,” Greg said with a snap of his finger. “Thank you for the reminder…er, what are you exactly?”

It seemed Annabelle’s parents were equal opportunity bigots. I should’ve just told him I was a woman and moved on with this miserable conversation, but I couldn’t resist fucking with them a bit.

“A person?”

Annabelle grabbed my leg in warning. I put my hand over hers. I was glad the camera was angled so it only caught the upper half of our bodies.

Greg laughed. “Yes, of course, you’re a person. I know that, but what are you Serenity? A sir a ma’am? Annabelle was terribly imprecise when she talked about you. And I and my wife here are a bit confused. Seeing you we’re even more confused. You’re not what we expected.”

The question dripped with condescension, but whether he knew it or not, he was paying me a sort of compliment. At least, I was going to take it that way. I didn’t mind that I confused people. It was sometimes fun. I didn’t like the nastiness that usually came along with it, and I especially didn’t like the way Annabelle’s parents were talking, but I’d had this conversation enough times that I had all the lines memorized.

“I’m a woman, sir,” I lied.

“See I told you, Greg,” Jean said. She smiled. “You’re a very handsome woman Serenity.”

It was hard not to laugh. I smiled wide and tried to mimic how friendly Darius could make himself look. “Thanks! Y'all are too sweet! No wonder your daughter is such a kind person!” I said, pitching my voice up so it sounded more feminine.

The mask Annabelle’s parents hid behind dropped for a split second, just long enough for me to notice they were surprised before their defenses rose again. Jeane got a mean edge in her eyes. She smiled. It was all teeth.

“So, I hear you were arrested recently on false charges? Is that how you got that black eye? Have you been icing it?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good, it’s an ugly thing. I hope it’ll be gone soon though.”

“Me too.”

“I heard from Miss Burns that you were arrested for attempted robbery? More specifically, grave robbery?” Jeane put her chin on her hand. “How did you get yourself accused of that?”

“The police don’t like Serenity. She has had a few bad run-ins with them in the past. This was them taking revenge,” Annabelle jumped in. “She didn’t have anything to do with the robbery they arrested for. Miss Burns will have told you that.”

“She did, but why do you have such an adverse relationship with the police Serenity? Have you been arrested before?” Greg asked.

He knew. He had to. They were only asking questions they already knew the answers to, looking for me to slip up. It was like being back in the interrogation room, but silence wasn’t an option here. The standard of evidence that Annabelle’s parents had for kicking me out of their house was vastly lower than the standards the police had to adhere to. Silence would be tantamount to a confession.

“There were a few incidents-”

“Let Serenity explain herself, dear. I’m sure she knows her history better than you,” Jeane said.

I wished they would’ve let Annabelle talk. The less I had to deal with her parents, the happier I’d be.

“I have a…bad relationship with my parents,” I said. “They’re not okay with how I am. They-”

“How you are? What do you mean by that?” Greg asked innocently.

“They don’t like that I’m trans,” I said.

“Ah. I see,” Jeane said. “That’s tragic. Greg and I love our daughters no matter the circumstances, isn’t that right Annabelle?”

“Of course mom,” Annabelle said.

“Of course?” Greg asked. “Come on Annabelle, I know we treat you better than that!” Greg laughed.

“You’re amazing mom and dad. I can’t thank you enough,” Annabelle replied, her voice saccharine sweet. Practiced. It sounded like she’d said these exact words before. “I love you two with all my heart.”

“Oh you’re making me blush,” Jeane said. She was not blushing

It was fucking weird. They all sounded genuine, but it was the type of genuine you saw in movies, like the three of them were reading lines from a script. Annabelle’s parents had decided that why the police hated me was less important than getting lavished with praise. I guess I could count myself lucky for that.

“Is there something wrong Serenity?” Jeane asked. “You looked troubled.”

“Sorry I’m just…I wish I had parents like you,” I lied.

“Oh you’re too kind,” Greg said. “Annabelle does have a heart of gold. I’m glad she’s saved you from your parents and your past. What would even have done without her?”

I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt. It seemed like the only thing to do and the faster I got through this, the better.

“Speaking of our other daughters, they told us that the two of you were living with Annabelle? Is that correct?” Jeane asked.

“Oh no! No, no that’s not true,” Darius lied. “I have a dorm back on campus that I’m usually at. Claire and Bailey have only seen me a couple of times, and I guess they assumed that meant I was living here. That has to be a misunderstanding.”

“I see,” Jeane said. “Do you ever spend the night at my house, Darius?”

“Once or twice, but I’ve never been alone with Annabelle. Serenity is always here with us. She keeps us in line,” Darius laughed. He reached across Annabelle and punched me lightly on the arm. “Annabelle needs her time and space anyway. I wouldn’t want to force her to spend it all on me. She’s a very busy woman.”

“So I’ve heard,” Greg said. “Serenity though, you do stay with my daughter? Is that correct?”

“Sometimes. I couch hop, so I sleep wherever I can find a bed.”

Annabelle’s parents looked deeply offended. It was like I told them I was a serial killer and I planned on making them, my next victims.

“That’s dreadful. You live like that?” Jeane asked.

“She does. That’s why she’s here a lot. She’s my friend,” Annabelle said.

“Oh honey, thank you for taking care of her. I understand everything now,” Jeane cooed. “Our little girl always knew how to help those who need it. She really did save you.”

They wanted me to praise Annabelle too. That had to be what they were waiting for. They were holding their breath for nothing. I’d already sat and let myself be humiliated for the entire duration of the call. I’d already given them their praise. I wasn’t going to give it to Annabelle too.

“I’m glad we’re friends,” I said.

“For now, feel free to stay at our home,” Greg said. “I’m sure you’ll find a new place to live soon.”

“Thank you. Y'all are too kind.”

“Oh, we’re not. Don’t thank us. We-”

Her phone started to ring. She held up a finger and answered it. No sound came from her side of the call. She had muted herself. Greg watched his wife dispassionately as she nodded along with whatever the person she was on call with was saying. It seemed like everything was going well until Jeane’s expression twisted into one of pure fury and outrage. She started to scream into the phone. Greg looked back at the camera, waved, then ended the call.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked.

“My parents,” Annabelle grumbled.

“Racist and transphobic. What a lovely couple,” Darius drawled.

“Why did we go with the charity angle again?” I asked. “You can’t tell me they give a fuck about my well being.”

“Why are you asking when you already know the answer?” Annabelle replied.

“Because I don’t.”

“You do. You stroke their ego. You made yourself sound pitiable, and my parents love that. They like to feel like they’re better than people, and what better way to feel better about yourself than helping the ‘less fortunate?’ It’s the only fucking reason they donate to charity in the first place. It’s all appearances. I promise the story of how their youngest daughter saved her friend from being homeless is something they’re going to tell to all their friends.”

“Like I said, lovely people,” Darius said. “Makes sense why y'all popped out like you did if they raised you.”

Annabelle laughed bitterly. “They didn’t raise me you dipshit. A long string of baby sitters did. I got a different one every six months. My parents liked the variety and my sisters and I gave the baby sitters plenty of incentive to leave.”

Annabelle’s voice dripped with her usual sarcasm, but she couldn’t disguise the little bit of hurt that leaked through too. She got up from the couch, then left the room without a word. Darius and I waited for her to come back, and just as Darius started to get up to find her, she returned carrying a cheap plastic bottle of tequila.

“I need this,” she said, unscrewing the top.

“That’s gonna taste like shit,” Darius warned.

She ignored him and tossed some back. She gagged like expected and wiped her mouth.

“You good?” Darius asked.

“What? I can’t drink? Serenity did when she got back from jail. You’re drunk every fucking night.”

“Correction, I’m tipsy at best. And so we're clear, when Serenity got back from prison, she was not okay.”

“I cut my connections with them, I really don't care,” Annabelle said, taking another swing.

“Then share the love,” Darius said, patting the spot Annabelle vacated.

“I’m going to my room,” Annabelle declared, then stalked back out of the room.

Darius turned to me and pointed to the door. “Want to help me with that?”

_

Annabelle drunk was almost the same as Annabelle sober. The only differences were that her insults weren’t as cutting and she was a bit slower to speak. She was also a lot more touchy. The three of us laid on her bed, decently drunk from the shitty tequila, and were watching some god-awful movie on Annabelle’s laptop. It was comfortable. No one tried to mention the conversation we’d had with Annabelle’s parents, no one mentioned what happened with Bishop today, and no one mentioned magic. I felt normal.

Well, as normal as I could feel with Darius and Annabelle pressed so close to me.

For some reason, they always stuck me in the middle of the two of them, even though I was bigger than Annabelle and it would’ve made more sense for her and me to swap spots. I’d tried to suggest that earlier, but Darius and Annabelle had shot down my idea before I had even finished proposing it and insisted that I had to remain between the two of them. So here I was, trying to focus on the movie instead of the warmth of the two of them against me.

It was not working.

“This is garbage. Why the fuck did you pick this garbage?” Annabelle asked.

“It’s a masterpiece,” Darius said.

“They’ve copy-pasted the same sex scene multiple times, Darius. He handed her vodka mixed with scotch. What’s even good about him? Is he supposed to be rich or some shit? Is that the only reason she likes him?”

“Nah, he buys her gifts too.”

“Fuck off, we’re not watching this. It’s trash,” Annabelle said. She reached forward and slammed her laptop shut. “I’m not doing it.”

Darius gave her puppy dog eyes. “Then what are we supposed to do?”

Both of their eyes turned to me. It took me a second to work out the intent behind it, and another second to find out how to respond.

“You are so cliche. Do you think you’re being smooth here?” I asked.

“Are you not charmed?” Darius asked.

“Hardly.”

“Well, I told you I’d make it worth your while and Annabelle is bored. You can put the pieces together right?”

“She’s not an idiot Darius. Christ.”

“I never said she was.”

They were both still looking at me and I didn’t know what the fuck I was supposed to be doing. This is not how it’d been with Elise. Elise had been efficient, straight to the point, and didn’t look at me like she wanted to devour me whole. I also didn’t live in Elise’s house or just meet Elise’s parents.

“I’m- we’re drunk,” I said.

“I’m not so drunk I can’t consent,” Annabelle said. “You don’t see me vomiting, do you? I’m fine.”

“I second that,” Darius said. “Are you alright though?”

Here was my out. All I had to do was say I was too drunk to continue and we could all go to sleep and move on. I wouldn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of them seeing my body or spend any more time trying to figure out why they found me attractive. It would’ve been so simple.

But I was impulsive and I couldn’t keep my fucking mouth shut. “I’m fine too.”

Darius smiled. “Cool.” His fingers drifted low, brushing under the hem of my shirt and I realized that I had a solution for them looking at my body.

“Stop,” I ordered.

Darius yanked his hand back like he’d been burned. “Did you not want-”

“No, it’s- the lights. Turn them off. I don’t want you to look at me.”

“What? I look at you all the time. What the fuck are you talking about?” Annabelle asked.

“Do you want to do this or not?”

“I do but-”

“Then just turn off the lights. I don’t want you to look at me naked.”

“Next you’re going to say we can’t touch you.”

“I never said that.”

Darius rolled out of bed and sauntered over to the light. “We’ll indulge you,” he said, shooting me a salacious grin before he killed the lights and plunged us into darkness.

My breath hitched. I could hear Darius walk back to bed. It dipped as he crawled back into it and settled next to me again. My heart pounded in my chest. I didn’t know any of this was going to work.

“I can almost hear you freaking out,” Darius said.

“I’m fine,” I replied breathlessly.

A shadow moved above me and then I felt Darius’s breath brushed across my ear. “I’ll make you more than fine.”

“You’re so fucking cheesy Jesus,” Annabelle complained.

“I’m suave, excuse you,” Darius replied, but I wasn’t listening because Annabelle took that chance to lean in and kiss me.

It was just as dominant as when we were fighting outside. She kissed like she fought, dirty and viciously. There was no doubt who the winner was. Her hand tilted my chin up with the other tangled itself up in my hair. I put my own on her hips, unsure of what else I was supposed to do with them. It wasn’t like this game with an instruction manual. Annabelle’s tongue traced across my lips and I made an extremely embarrassing noise high in my throat. I hoped neither of them noticed.

“You’re cute,” Darius whispered. He kissed right below my ear, then traced his lips lower, then bit high on my neck. I almost choked.

Annabelle pulled away from our kiss. “Darius, you’re in my way,” she hissed. I could hear the scowl in her voice.

Darius bit me again, a bit lower this time. I squeezed my eyes shut. This was a lot. Oh, fuck this was happening.

“You can- why don’t you do something?” I asked.

“I am doing something.”

“She means with me you dumbass,” Annabelle said. I’d never been more relieved in my life for the save.

Darius pulled away from my neck. “Oh? Have I earned a kiss too?”

Annabelle didn’t reply, but I could hear the missing above me. It almost made me regret that the lights were off. If they weren't though, I would've never had the courage to do this. I wasn’t even sure if I had the courage now.

“You bit me,” Darius accused.

“You liked it.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Annabelle's hand settled on my chest, right below my breasts. I could feel her looking down at me. “Off,” she asked. No, no asked wasn’t right. Ordered was more correct. Annabelle didn’t ask questions. She said things and expected them to be obeyed.

I was enough of a fool to listen.

“You too,” Annabelle commanded.

“Is that an order?”

“Yes.”

Darius snickered, but I heard the rustle of his clothes coming off nonetheless. I looked away even though there was nothing to see in the darkness.

“You’re lucky you’re so cute,” Darius said.

“Luck has nothing to do with it. Now stay on task.”

“I was never off task.”

“Do you two ever stop?” I asked. “Is it just…are you always like this.”

“It never ends darling,” Darius said. And then his lips met mine and I stopped thinking so hard about what was happening.

For once, I wouldn’t overthink this.

_

The next week passed without incident. Madame Grace told us to meet her Saturday for our next lesson and was impossible to contact otherwise. Willow had tried, but they reported that every time they tried to open Madame Grace’s door, it was locked. On Thursday, they had found a letter pinned to the inside of the window telling them to stop coming and wait until Saturday.

In some ways, it was a relief. I had some time to breathe and pretend like my life was relatively normal. It was also time to let my bruise heal and gave Elise and her family enough time to finally fix both her and Annabelle’s car, officially erasing any evidence that we’d been at the Maye house in the first place. Not that we needed more evidence we weren’t there now. The police seemed to have stopped their investigation, and no more cops were knocking on any of our doors.

I got to spend time with Willow, laying in the field and watching them train their crows and by extension, their magic. Willow was damn good at it. The birds came at their beck and call, more than happy to display their eerie intelligence and perform whatever task Willow set in front of them. It was incredible to watch. I wanted to try practicing my magic when I was with them and spend time trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong last Saturday, but that wound was still too sore for me to want to poke at. I didn’t want to do anything until I talked to Madame Grace again.

It was a meeting that I both dreaded and anticipated.

I didn’t want to tell her that our best efforts to contact had consisted of pinning a letter to a tree, hoping Isiah found us and left us a nice little note back. I didn’t want to think about how in the dark we were about what Isiah and Maribelle and Waylon were doing, and I especially didn’t want to think about unprepared we were going to be when they finally acted.

I did want new jewelry though, and for that, I needed Madame Grace. My necklaces and bracelets now weren’t sapping away my anxiety or stress. They were adding to it. Ever since I forced my anger into them, there was something off about them that I couldn’t figure out how to fix, not that I tried very hard. I’d already fucked up doing magic once. I wasn’t eager to make the same mistake.

Without my jewelry, I was jumpier than usual. I kept expecting Joseph to appear and deliver the invitations he promised, or Isiah to knock on Annabelle’s door at night with our letter in his hand, asking to talk to us. It was terrifying to think that both thoughts weren’t totally irrational.

All the attention I’d gathered for myself wasn’t helping me relax either. The video of my arrest was still making the rounds, and people were still chattering on about it. I put it up to the attention bracelet Madam Grace had given me. There was no way I would believe that people cared that much about me otherwise.

Even though I enjoyed my talks with Willow, the real thing keeping me together and preventing me from screaming at the next asshole who stared at me was Annabelle and Darius. I’d never thought that I’d rely on Annabelle to be a source of emotional stability, but she was. We spent at least ten minutes a day bitching about Hope and everything else that was wrong with our lives. Darius never offered any of his complaints but was more than happy to listen to ours. At the end of the night, when we typically finished our bitching, Darius always had the same suggestion for how to relax.

It was about as good of a method as one could get.

The sex was good. Better than good. At first, I tried to be careful, but all my attempts at that flew out the window as soon Darius or Annabelle started to touch me or one another. I was secretly terrified that one day they were going to get sick of my need to only fuck in pitch-black darkness, but Annabelle and Darius never seemed to mind. How they could sleep with them, with all my hangups and weird body, and come out the other side telling me they enjoyed it, was a question I’d spent hours pondering. It was harder to wrap my head around than magic, but I was doing my best to not think about it. For now, I was going to gorge myself on as much affection and sex as I could get until this all inevitably crashed and burned around me.

That thought was what gave me the courage to walk downtown, holding Darius’s hand. Annabelle led the way in front of us, glaring her way through the crowds that were clustered in front of bars and watching their TVs. A few groups of old people had set up their chairs around a radio in the middle of the street and were listening intently. It made downtown a cacophony of noise and different casters giving a play by play of the game. By the sound of it, UGA was losing.

“Football?” Darius asked.

“Yup,” Annabelle said. “UGA is having a game against Alabama, and since GCU has no sports teams to speak of, everyone lives vicariously through places that do. It’s stupid.”

“Nothing else draws the crowds like sports,” Darius said.

“Holidays do,” I replied.

“It may as well be a holiday, don’t you think?” Darius asked.

“Unfortunately,” Annabelle agreed.

We reached Madame Grace’s shop and Annabelle tried to open the door, only to find it locked. Annabelle growled and pounded on the door. No one answered. She kicked it.

“I don’t think that’s working,” I said.

“If you kick it harder it might open. You never know,” Darius suggested.

Annabelle whirled around to face us. “It’s Saturday. She told us to meet us Saturday. It’s fuck 7 and she isn’t here. What the fuck?”

“I told you we should’ve waited. Willow wasn’t going to come until later anyway,” I said.

“This is later,” she hissed.

“Can we eat then?” Darius asked.

Annabelle put her hands on her hips and looked around downtown. Every bar and restaurant was crowded and only getting worse. Some people were sitting on the sidewalk in lawn chairs, drinking and staring up at the TVs above them with rapt attention. I wasn’t a mind reader, but it wasn’t hard to guess what Annabelle was going to say next.

“It’d e faster to go home and cook than wait,” Annabelle said sullenly. She sat down and put her back against Madame Grace’s door. “We’re waiting here. Come sit.”

“I could try,” Darius objected.

“It’s not worth it, she’s right,” I said. “Unless you’re buying beer, you’re not going to get anywhere.”

“Oh, wonderful idea, thank you Serenity, I’ll be right back,” Darius said, then broke away from me and walked into the bar next door.

“You can’t be serious!” Annabelle shouted after him.

He ignored her.

She huffed and crossed her arms. “Serenity, come sit,” she ordered.

I shrugged and squeezed in next to her by the door. Annabelle looked around the street glaring at everyone she could. She paid particular attention to some of the more hardcore fans, the ones who painted themselves red and black and had no shirts on. I took out my phone and mindlessly scrolled through my social media.

Five minutes later and Darius still wasn’t back. Willow was though. They walked down the street, wearing the same dark black dress and sun hat I’d met them in. Three crows trailed behind them, landing on top of roofs and watching the crowd as it moved as if they were sizing up their next meal. It was incredibly fucking cool.

“It’s too loud,” Willow complained. Their face was twisted up in discomfort. They pointed to the door. “It’s locked?”

“It was when I tried it,” Annabelle said.

Willow reached over her, turned the door handle, and pushed the door open. They looked down at Annabelle in confusion. “It’s unlocked,” they said.

Annabelle and I looked over our shoulder and found Madame Grace sitting at her table, drinking sweet tea. She smiled and waved, her jewelry clinking together.

“When did you unlock it?” Annabelle asked.

“When you knocked. You gave up too quickly,” Madame Grace replied.

Willow stepped over us and into the shop, before looking back on the roof their three crows had perched on. “They’re watching. They’ll call if Joseph comes anywhere close. They know him now,” they said before they closed the door to Madame Grace’s shop right in Annabelle and I’s face.

Annabelle blinked in confusion and looked at me. “What the fuck was that? I didn’t do anything to piss them off.”

“It’s loud out,” I replied. “They don’t have anything against you.”

Darius reappeared on the street, holding three cans of beer. He smiled at us. “They don’t card here, do they? That’s insane.”

“You dress like a 50-year-old. Of course, you don’t get carded,” Annabelle said.

Darius glanced down at his cream colored suit, then back to Annabelle. “This is good taste Annabelle, I thought we established that.”

Annabelle stood up. “I think when you get up in the morning, you flip a coin to decide whether you’re going to dress like a campy James Bond villain or like a spoiled rich kid.”

“I strive to do both,” Darius said. He pushed his arms forward. “Take one, my hands are getting cold.”

“I hate beer,” I said.

“Annabelle take one, my hands are getting cold,” he repeated.

She rolled her eyes and took one out of his hands. I continued to look up at the crows. Darius followed my line of sight, then raised an eyebrow. “Willow’s?” he asked.

“Yeah, they brought them. They’re our security.”

“That’s fucking badass. I want a pet crow.”

“Don’t let Willow hear you say that. They’re not pets to them. They’re still wild animals,” I said.

“The principle remains.”

“Elise is late,” Annabelle said. She unscrewed the top of her beer and took a drink, then made a face. “What is this shit? It’s disgusting.”

“Excuse you, it’s amazing,” Darius retorted.

“Y'all can go in, I’ll wait for Elise,” I said.

“Tired of our company already?” Darius teased.

“You’re stifling,” I deadpanned.

He opened the door and walked inside. Annabelle followed. “Be safe,” he said before he shut the door behind him.

I looked out onto the street. I knew waiting outside was only delaying the inevitable, but I wasn’t ready to go into Madame Grace’s shop and explain my fuck up last Saturday. Hopefully, when I did have to tell her, she’d take it the way she’d taken every piece of bad news so far, with a casual shrug and a sigh that said ‘what can you do?' 

Before I could get too far down that train of thought, I spotted Elise jogging down the street, dodging around people as she did. I groaned. Couldn’t she have been a bit later? She jogged over to me, then stopped and put her hands on her knees. Her dark hair was wild and her light brown skin was red with exertion.

“Did you run all the way here?” I asked.

“No, I drove, but I had to park by the dorms and it took forever to find a spot. Too many fucking people out. That and I had to find an excuse to get away from my parents. We were watching the game together.”

“I thought y'all had worked that out?”

She made a so-so gesture. “Sort of. They don’t care about the car, but they’re worried about me. They think I’m hiding something and keeping asking me what it is. Guess I kind of am though, so it’s hard to blame them.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” I asked.

“I hope not.” Elise pointed at the door. “That still locked or…?”

“It’s not. The others are inside.”

“And you’re not?”

I shrugged. “I’m taking a few minutes to myself. You can go in though.”

“Cool.” Elise started to walk forward, paused, then backed up and craned her head to look at the TV of one of the bars next door. I could hear an announcer speaking quickly, stumbling over their words as he got louder and louder before he screamed ‘touchdown!’ The word was followed by outraged shouts from everyone downtown who was watching. Elise’s face soured.

“Fuck,” she cursed.

“Fuck?”

“Yeah, fuck. We lost,” Elise said.

I rolled my eyes. “We didn’t lose. We’re not even playing.”

“Fine. UGA lost. It’s the same thing.” She looked around. People were still shouting at their TVs or one another. “People are going to be pissed. I bet it’s going to get even louder out here soon.” She looked back down at me. “The bars will be fun after this. People drinking away their sorrows. You want to go to some after we’re done here?”

“If Annabelle and Darius want to do it, sure.”

She grinned down at me. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with them. What’s going on with-”

“I’d like to take my few minutes for myself now,” I said hurriedly.

Elise laughed and walked into the shop. “Don’t take too long now,” she said before she shut the door.

I turned back to the street. The angry shouting wasn’t stopping. A few of the people I saw looked genuinely devastated. In the twilight, it looked almost fake, like I was in some cheesy sports movie. If Darius was out here, he would’ve loved the melodrama of it all.

On the roof, Willow’s crows fidgeted, then started to call. The shouts were getting louder still. I could almost feel the outrage oozing from all the people downtown. Those who had been inside bars poured out on the streets, adding to the noise and chaos.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I stood up, looking around for Joseph, readying myself to run into Madame Grace's shop, but first I wanted to get an eye on Joseph and make sure it was really him.

The sound of glass shattering pierced through the air. I whipped my head to where it came from and saw that someone had put a rock through the glass of an old lamp post, snuffing out the light and sending glass everywhere. People cheered. Another rock flew through the air and narrowly missed another lamppost. I got to my feet. Were people about to riot over a fucking football game? Was this happening?

More glass shattered to the right of me this time. The shouts reached a fever pitch.

Then, for a split second, everything went quiet.

From the alley, the broken lamp post sat in front of, shadows slithered forward. They were too dark. The dying twilight and light should’ve banished them, but instead, the shadow sucked them up like a black hole. A pair of familiar eyes, ones I’d seen in the cemetery once before, caught the light. For the first time. The only visible part of them were the whites. His irises must’ve been as dark as the shadow he surrounded himself with.

All hell broke loose.

The shouting picked up again and the street burst into activity. More rock flew through the air, but this time they haven’t aimed just as lamp posts. Some hit the walls of bars, while others smacked against their windows. All of this I saw from the corner of my eyes because for some reason, I couldn’t look away from Isiah’s. It made my skin crawl. The same anger I’d felt when I was choking Bishop flared to life. It was as if I was back in the church all over again. I took a step back, trying to get away, but for every step I took, Isiah’s eyes moved closer. They bounced along like he was limping as if one leg was shorter than the other. It was terrifying. Prey instinct kicked to life. A massive dump of adrenaline followed.

Isiah took another step forward.

Anger exploded inside of me, whiting out everything else. I wanted to rip and tear and destroy. I wanted to hurt.

“Serenity!” Annabelle shouted.

The sound of her voice tore my eyes away from Isiah’s and to the threshold of Madame Grace’s shop. Her eyes were wild. Looking at her made me angry on a level I couldn’t comprehend. The anger of the crowd was feeding into me and I into it and I couldn’t remember why the fuck I had to listen to her in the first place.

“Serenity, get the fuck inside!” she screamed.

I looked away from her and to Isiah. His eyes flicked to a car parked across from Madame Grace’s, then back to mine. Another swell or unstoppable rage rocked my body. I gasped, then tilted my head back and screamed.

It felt good. It was one of the best things I’d ever done. Joining the chaos that Isiah had sewn was freeing in a way I didn’t think anything could be. I stepped out into the street and became a part of the crowd, searching wildly for the next thing to destroy. I settled on a car across the street that a few people were pushing at and trying to flip over. I joined their effort, trying to flip the thing over, but it refused to budge. I bared my teeth and pushed harder, imagining what the car would look like when it flipped, imagining the noise it would make and the damage it would do. There were five of trying. That was more than enough, we could do it.

Something clicked into place, like a piece of the puzzle. It occurred to me then, somewhere deep in my mind, that I was a witch and I was doing magic and it was all so simple. I’d been overthinking it all along, trying to assign everything a neat little label and process, when all I needed to do was feel and will.

The car flipped hard. The roof of it smashed into the crowd and a spiderweb of cracks formed on the windshield. The people around me cheered. I cheered. That flipped car, hopefully, destroyed and ruined for the rest of time, was the single most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Darkness swallowed me whole like I fell into an abyss. My skin broke out in goosebumps. A fresh shiver of anger washed over me, and then I found the eyes. They were inches away from my own, alight with savage glee and joy.

“Come help me spread the joy, won’t you?” Isiah drawled.


	19. Interlude - Annabelle

She wasn’t picking up. I’d tried more than 20 times now, but she still wasn’t answering. Darius leaned back in his chair and gave me a questioning look. “Darius, if you say it’ll be fine, one more time, I’m going to fucking kill you,” I said.

“Well that wouldn’t be very productive,” he replied.

I covered my hands with my face and tried to breathe. Fuck. We shouldn’t have let her stay out there. We’d managed to get through digging up a grave, getting hunted down by Joseph, and even meeting my fucking parents, only for her to get sucked up into Isiah’s riot. When I got my hands back on her, I swore to god I was going to put her on a leash so she couldn’t run off and make any more of these stupid fucking decisions.

“It will be safe to go outside soon. The crowd and Isiah have mostly moved on. There are only a few stragglers left,” Madame Grace said.

“It’s already been 15 minutes, how much longer is it going to take?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I glared at her and resumed my pacing. She was trying to act calm, but I knew she wasn’t. There was nothing obvious in her body language that gave it away, but I still found it in the little things. The way she didn’t drag out her words as long as she usually did. The way she scooted back her chair to create some space between her and the door. Beyond that though, an instinctual part of me just knew. I could feel her concern as clearly as I could see her in front of me.

“When we go out there, how are we going to find Serenity? You got a plan for this?” Darius asked.

“Follow the riot,” I replied.

“If we can’t go outside right now, why would you think getting closer to where Isiah is making people pissed is going to help? We could get caught up in it too and then we’re all fucked.”

“He’s right. We need a better strategy,” Elise agreed.

I strode over to Madame Grace’s curtain and pulled it aside just enough for me to cast one eye onto the street. Downtown was still chaos, but more and more people were running away from the destruction rather than joining it. They were dark shadows in the night. The only illumination came from the rapidly dying light of the day and the one or two fires that had been set in the middle of the street. All the other streetlights were destroyed.

Beyond the streetlights, the destruction was random. Cars, cheap and expensive alike, had been smashed up. Rocks were put through any pieces of glass close enough to hit, and anything else that was easy to destroy had been. I knew Isiah’s goal was to destroy Hope, but I didn’t think he’d be so literal about it.

The destruction didn’t bother me. I couldn’t give two fucks about Hope. What I did care about was Serenity. She was out there, wearing a bracelet that grabbed peoples’ and smashing things up. It would be so fucking easy for someone to see her. All it would take was one picture or video and it’d be over. The police would pounce on it and the fight to get her out again wouldn’t be nearly as easy. My only hope was that she remained in the sickly dark miasma that surrounded Isiah and when that was what I was I was relying on, something had gone really, really fucking wrong.

Fuck.

“My crows could find her,” Willow said. They glided up beside me and pointed up on the roof across from us. I could just make out the shape of their birds sitting there in the dark. 

_Our best bet is chasing magical fucking crows in the middle of a riot. Unbelievable_ , I thought.

“Alright, let’s say that works, we still have two problems. We need to avoid getting caught up in the riot like Serenity and we need to somehow get her away from him. How are we going to do that?” Elise asked.

“Joseph too,” Darius added. “I don’t think he’s involved with this, but he’ll probably be out there. He can’t sit by and watch this happen.”

“The crows know Joseph. We can avoid him,” Willow said. 

“All the warning in the world won’t stop him from killing us if we’re too slow,” Darius said. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about Serenity getting arrested, though. Hope doesn’t have riot police, right?” 

“Fuck no. They have to let this play out until it’s over,” I said.

“This will cause so much damage,” Madame Grace said solemnly.

I let the curtain fall back over the window and resisted the urge to bang my head against the wall. Sitting and talking was doing nothing. I wanted to act. To go drag Serenity back. I wanted to kill Isiah for starting a riot and snatching her away. For a second, I imagined myself outside and rioting, smashing old buildings and throwing bricks. It would’ve felt good, but it wasn’t good enough to do it. Even if Serenity had the same train of thought, she wouldn’t have gone. She wasn’t that impulsive.

“Since we’re not going anywhere, can we take a second to figure out why she acted like that?” Elise asked as if she was reading my mind. “I felt it too, whatever Isiah was doing to piss people off, but she went feral and we didn't. I don’t get why.”

“Your jewelry and proximity to me,” Madame Grace said. “It likely absorbed it and let you keep control. Whatever you’re wearing is filled with emotion now.” She looked at me. “That might be why you’re so angry.”

“I’m angry because my friend is out there in a fucking riot!” I spat.

“You protected us?” Darius asked.

“What do you think I’ve been doing? I’ve been protecting my shop since the riot began. That’s why no one has put a brick through my window.”

“SO we were safe because we were inside and she was?” Elise clarified.

“Correct.”

“Gonna put a fucking leash on her. I swear to god,” I said.

“Kinky,” Darius drawled.

“Darius, if you say one more stupid fucking thing, I’m going to make you sleep on the floor.”

Madame Grace caught my eyes. “Annabelle, please take off your jewelry.” 

“Don’t,” Elise objected, “If they’re filled with emotion, we can use them. For magic,” she looked at Madame Grace. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? That’s your whole plan. You give us empty jewelry, we fill it up with emotion, we give it back to you and then you use it for whatever you’re doing.”

“Yes. I thought you were aware of that,” she replied.

“We are and that’s why we’re not giving anything back.”

Madame Grace shrugged. “If you’d like to put your jewelry back on after you remove it, by all means, do so. I am simply saying that it’s part of why you’re so upset,” Madame Grace said. “It would benefit us all if you had a clear head.”

She was right. I hated that she was right. It made me even angrier, but I was more interested in getting Serenity back than starting an argument with Madame Grace. I started to pull off my jewelry and tossed it on the table. When it was all off, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and thought about how I felt. It was slightly better. I was still pissed, but not pissed enough to want to kill someone.

“It’s barely better,” I complained.

“But it is better,” Madame Grace said.

It was and I hated it.

“So the jewelry played a roll. Cool, I can see that. I can also believe that we were safe in your shop, but Annabelle opened the door and she was barely ten feet away from Isiah, and she didn’t lose her shit. If her jewelry saved her, then why didn't’ Serenity’s?” Elise asked. 

Darius cleared his throat. “Well, I might have an idea.”

“Darius,” I warned. Now was not the time to bring up Saturday.

He held up his hands. “What? They were going to find out anyway. Serenity would’ve told them,” Darius said. He set his hands back on the table and looked at Madame Grace. “So, you know how I was telling you about Joseph and what Annabelle, Serenity, and I found out about him?”

“Yes, Darius. I’m not losing my memories yet.”

“Right, well we didn’t tell you how we got him to talk and you were about to ask before all of that happened,” Darius said, gesturing to the door. “To make a long story short, we walked into Bishop’s office and asked him about Joseph. We were having an okay talk when Joseph showed up. He-”

“You saw Joseph last week?” Willow asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“And you didn’t tell us? Why? What’s wrong with you?” Elise asked.

Darius made a face. “We were going to today. If you want to yell at us you can, just let me finish, okay?”

“Is that where you got the pen you gave me from?” Willow asked.

“The pen?” Elise said. “What pen?”

“A ballpoint pen. Serenity gave it to me on Monday. It’s how I’ve been training my crows to find and avoid Joseph. She told me she got it from Bishop when y'all went to talk to him.”

“We did,” I said. “That’s where it came from. Joseph gave Bishop a pen. We took it.”

“Took it? He didn’t give it to you?” Elise asked.

“In a way he did,” Darius said. “But can I finish? If y'all want to yell at me after you can, just let me get done with this please.”

“Dig the grave deeper then. This is all news to me. You’ve been keeping me out of the loop,” Elise said. She crossed her arms. “What happened to communication, Annabelle?”

Oh, she was not starting this here. I ignored her and glared at Darius. “Keep going,” I ordered.

He nodded. “Right, so anyway, Joseph showed up and he scared the shit out of Bishop. I thought that would make him more willing to work with us, but it didn’t. He started freaking out, and then he threatened to shout for Joseph and tell him that we were there. Obviously, we didn’t want to die, so Serenity started to choke him and-”

“I’m sorry?” Elise said. “She fucking started to choke him? Did I hear that right?”

“Can I please finish?” Darius groaned. “I’m almost done.”

“You’ve been getting up to trouble then,” Madame Grace said. 

“Finish Darius. You’ve already started,” I snapped.

“So Serenity got pissed, obviously, and choked him. She was pissed enough to use magic to do it too because Bishop didn’t try and getaway. She scared the shit of him. He just sat there and let himself be choked until Annabelle pulled Serenity off. Then he talked and gave us the pen. Problem is, Serenity fucked herself up a bit doing magic. Put too much of her anger into it and lost it for a bit. She said she fixed it, but I’m guessing her jewelry was still too full of emotion to keep her safe, so that’s probably why she got swept away so easily,” he finished. “Just a theory though.”

“When were you going to tell us this?” Willow asked.

“We were going to let Serenity do it,” I said.

“Fuck letting Serenity do it! What are the three of you doing? You could’ve gotten yourselves killed!” Elise shouted.

“We didn’t know Joseph would be there at the same time as us!” I shouted back. “What were the chances? Do we not go anywhere now because Joseph could show up?” 

“The choking part is what I’m concerned with,” Elise replied.

“I know. I was too. We already had this talk. Multiple times. Serenity gets it,” I said.

“No more secrets,” Willow said. They swept their eyes over me and Darius. “If you are doing something related to magic or an errand, you tell us what happened or anything else bad happens to you, you tell everyone. Swear it.”

Darius put one hand on his heart and held up his other. “I solemnly swear to always tell the truth when it comes to those things you’ve just mentioned,” he said sarcastically.

Willow turned to me. “You now.”

“You’re going to accept that?” I asked.

“He swore it. You too,” they replied.

“I’m with Willow here. You can’t be doing this shit, Annabelle. You know that hiding stuff is a bad idea. I know you do,” Elise chastised.

There it was again. “Oh, so now hiding things is bad? That’s convenient,” I said.

Elise’s eyes hardened. “You really want to go there, Annabelle?”

“You did it first.”

“You’re paranoid.”

“Am I? 

Her glare met my own and we stared one another down. The rest of the room faded away. Sometimes I wished I had made Madame Grace cut my connections with her. It would’ve made everything easier. There was something inside of me that still responded to her eyes, still wanted to see her happy and smiling, and still felt hurt when she was looking at me how she was now. But she didn’t have a leg to stand on. I wasn’t chasing after her anymore. 

“Swear you’ll tell us if anything happens so we can move on. We’re better than this,” Elise said.

“We are?”

“Why are you trying to start a fight?” Elise asked. “You fucked up, just say you won’t do it again and we can talk about this later. We don’t have the time right now.”

“Say it,” Darius said. “It’s reasonable. Let’s not fight. We’re all friends here.”

I eyed her warily. It would’ve been so easy to keep pushing, but doing so was only going to hurt Serenity. The more of us there looking for her, the faster and safer we would find her. I’d swallowed my pride here. For Serenity.

“I promise to tell y'all if anything comes up,” I said.

“Good,” Elise said.

Willow stood up and walked over to the curtain and took a peak. “It’s cleared more,” Willow said. They pulled the curtain aside. Outside, there were still people running around, but downtown had quieted. It almost looked abandoned. “We can try to follow her now.”

“You gonna help us?” Darius asked Madame Grace.

“What would you like me to do?” she replied.

“Give us something to help us deal with Isiah,” Elise said.

“There is nothing I can give you right now that will let you win a fight with that man considering the situation we’re in,” Madame Grace said. 

“Follow us then. Help us find Serenity,” I said.

“I have to protect my shop.”

“You made a deal with us. We’re fighting you’re fucking war. Serenity isn’t a pawn for your game. If you don’t help her because it’s inconvenient for you, then you’re just as bad as Maribelle and Waylon,” I replied.

Madame Grace’s eyes darkened. A bolt of fear passed through me. Suddenly, I remembered how powerful Madame Grace was. If she wanted to, she could’ve swatted me like an insect. It was almost enough to make me back down, but I held my ground. Serenity needed us. All of us. She signed the contract too.

“I’m nothing like them,” Madame Grace said. “Never say that again.”

“Then get up and help instead of sitting there you fucking hag!”

Madame Grace didn’t flinch and her expression didn’t soften. I stood there panting like a dog, waiting for her judgment. Not for the first time, I thought I might’ve pushed it a bit too far. 

“I have other obligations than the five of you.”

“If you don’t help, I’m going to bail on our deal. I promise I will,” I threatened.

“I’m with her,” Darius said.

“She is my friend,” Willow said quietly.

“And mine,” Elise added.

Madame Grace looked at the four of us like we were a particularly challenging puzzle. Then, with a heavy sigh that made her sound every bit as old as she truly was, she stood up. “Fetch me my cane,” she ordered. 

“You’re coming with us?” Willow asked.

“You’re not useful to me dead. Serenity knows how to do magic too. Letting her go would be a mistake. I’ll help y'all find her.”

Darius grabbed Madame Grace’s cane from where it was leaning against the door and handed it to her. “What will we owe you?”

“If my shop is destroyed while I am gone, the five of you will help me repair. If it’s not, then you will owe me nothing.” Madame Grace accepted the cane and leaned on it heavily. “For your sake, I hope nothing happens. None of you look like builders to me.”

Darius opened the door. “Maybe we can get you that meeting with Isiah while we’re out. Take care of our errand. That’d be nice.” 

Madame Grace smiled. “Y'all are too clever for your own good. That’s why you’re here with me instead of safe at home,” Madame Grace said. She strode over to the door and stepped outside, then looked over her shoulder. “Well? You demanded I go, but I will not go alone.”

The four of filtered out behind her. Madame Grace locked the door to her shop and Willow let out a sharp whistle. Their crows flew down from the roofs. Two landed on their shoulders, while the third landed on the ground in front of them. Elise jumped and stumbled back.

“What the fuck? They come when you call them?” Elise asked.

“Yes. I’ve been training them. I told you that,” Willow replied. 

“Beautiful birds,” Madame Grace complimented giving the one on Willow’s shoulder a scratch.

“Yes. This is Huginn, Muninn, and Felicity,” Willow said, pointing to the bird on their right shoulder, their left, and then the one on the ground. “They’re smart birds.” They reached into their pocket and came out with a bracelet, then crouched down and offered it to the crow on the ground. It took it into its mouth, then fidgeted again like it was about to take off. Willow whistled again, and the three birds took off into the night. “They will look for her and come back if they find her.”

“So what do we do in the meantime?” Darius asked.

“We follow the trail Isiah left,” I said.

“Didn’t we agree following the riot was bad? Did I imagine that?” Darius asked.

“We can follow it so long as we stay far away. We play this safe, agreed?” Elise said.

I agreed, but my promise was hollow. If I saw a chance to snatch back Serenity, what was rightfully mine, I would take it. I wasn’t going to let her slip away.

The five of us walked down the street in silence, sticking close together. Willow, Elise, and Madame Grace stuck to the front, while Darius and I hung back, watching our rear. Occasionally, someone would cross the street ahead of us or in front of us, but otherwise, the street was quiet. The riot and destruction had forced everyone indoors.

The path Isiah took was well marked with destroyed windows and broken street lights. Even a few of the lights mounted on the tops of roofs or walls had been destroyed. Glass littered the street, glinting under the light of my phone’s flashlight and what little lights the riot had missed.

“He has a thing against streetlights, doesn’t he?” Darius said.

“Only active at night? Destroys streetlights? It looks like our friend is nocturnal,” Elise said. “Maybe that’s his kryptonite. We shine a flashlight in his face and he’ll melt.”

“Maybe,” Willow said. “It’s something to consider.”

“I wasn’t being serious.”

“I was,” Willow replied.

Darius snickered. “It’s an idea. It would be so fitting if he went all Wicked Witch of the West on us,” he said.

“How would that be fitting? Because he stole away Serenity?” Elise asked.

“Exactly. You already knew what I was thinking.”

“We’re supposed to be serious. Stop joking around,” I ordered.

“You know,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper and throwing an arm around my shoulder, “you can just say you’re worried about her. No one is going to care.”

“Of course I’m worried. I’m not trying to hide it,” I grumbled. Worried was an understatement for how I felt. It felt like I was back at the police station, watching Serenity come out from the backroom with her face swollen, looking like she’d been robbed of all her emotions. 

“It seems like you are,” Darius said.

“I’m not.”

“You should tell her that. I think she might like to know. Serenity likes it when you spell it out for her.” 

“She told you that?” I asked, just a bit jealous that he might know something about Serenity that I didn’t.

“Nope, only a feeling,” he replied. He looked around us making sure everything was still clear before he turned back and gave me a salacious grin. “You know after this maybe we can-”

“If you’re about to say what I think you’re going to say, don’t. I don’t want to hear it. Not now,” I snapped.

Darius pouted. “You always say not now."

“Darius.”

“What?”

“Be serious. Now. For me and her.”

He rolled his eyes, but I watched a bit of his humor fade. It wasn’t the same cold expression I’d caught glimpses of before, but it was noticeably more serious. I was glad to see it. 

“Thank you.”

“I care about her too, you know,” Darius said. “Believe it or not.”

“You’re not acting like it.”

“When has freaking out ever helped anything?”

I didn’t have a reply to that. There was so much about Darius that I didn’t know. I wished I could’ve read his mind and found out what he was thinking. I wished I could’ve read his emotions as easily as Madame Grace could. It would’ve removed all doubt. I could be fucking sure of what he thought instead of having to guess.

I fucking hated guessing.

We lapsed into silence as we followed Isiah’s trail. It led straight, not turning and changing direction at any of the crossroads. I wondered where he planned on stopping. Things started to get spaced further and further apart the more North you went. At a point, you would hit Harper Street and pick what side of the street you wanted to ravage.

“He did a number on campus,” Elise observed, looking at the buildings as we passed. It was hard to see the state of them in the dark, but I could tell that a few had been damaged.

“It looks better than downtown, maybe he has a soft spot for academica,” Darius said.

“He didn’t destroy it. People in his riot did. He’s going somewhere else,” Willow replied.

“Where?” I asked.

“Somewhere significant and symbolic of the town,” Madame Grace said. “He’s trying to sew fear.”

“That could be a hundred places. It doesn’t narrow it down. He could be lashing out to lash out too,” Elise said.

“No. He’s not. He’s too old for senseless violence,” Madame Grace said. “He wants to present that image as a shield, but he is being methodical. If he wasn’t, he would’ve been stopped by now.”

“By who?” Willow asked.

“Maribelle and Waylon most likely, but perhaps other witches as well. No one gets this far without being careful.”

“Other witches,” Darius repeated as if he was saying a phrase in a foreign language. “How many other witches are there?”

“A topic for another day,” Madame Grace said dismissively.” Her cane clacked against the ground as she walked, then she said, “I think he’s heading towards city hall.”

“Burning down seats of government does tend to send a message,” Darius said.

We passed by the dorms, which had seemed to hold up to the riot well. Some of the lower floor windows had been shattered, but the buildings were otherwise too sturdy to suffer much damage. The cars parked in front of the dorms hadn’t faired nearly as well. Every single one of them had broken windshields and dents on the hood or in the sides. For the first time, I was glad the student lot was set so far back from the dorms.

Isiah’s trail snaked through the small park by the dorms, then out and back into a more residential section of Hope filled with student apartments. Most of them had been spared. They were behind fences and small stone walls, making themselves inconvenient targets. Cars and streetlights made for much easier targets. A few braver people who I assumed lived in the apartments were out on the street, examining their destroyed cars while others watched from windows and balconies. We got a few cautious looks, likely due to our bracelets, but for once, we weren’t the most interesting thing happening.

“The riot moved fast,” Elise said. “He’s not wasting any time getting where he’s going. I guess it’s not worth destroying the stuff here.”

“Maybe it’s because these buildings are new,” Willow suggested.

“It’s about convenience more than newness. He’s going to destroy whatever is easiest to,” I said.

“Maybe a bit of column A, a bit of column B. If he’s as old as we think he is, he’s been carrying this grudge for a while. Hope to him is probably more of the old buildings than the new ones.”

“Maybe,” I said reluctantly.

The student apartments faded behind us and Harper street started to open up in front of us. Before we could get too far down it, the cry of crow split the air. A few seconds later, it flew out of the dark and landed in front of Willow, and pecked at their shoe. Willow’s right pocket. Willow pulled out their phone and showed the bird the same picture of Joseph they’d shown us. The crow tilted back his head and let out another loud caw. Willow nodded, then whistled again. The bird took off into the night, then landed on top of a shatter lamp post around ten feet away.

“Felicity found Joseph,” they reported. 

“Fucking fantastic. How close is he?” I asked.

A pair of crows cawed cacophonously, a bit further away than Felicity was. Willow tensed. “Close,” they intoned.

“We keep going,” I said. “If Joseph is out here, he couldn’t give two fucks about us. He’s probably trying to stop the riot.”

“Or he might use it as a chance to kill us,” Elise said. “That’s a strong possibility.”

“That’s why we have Madame Grace.”

“For what it’s worth, I think Annabelle is correct. With the five of us together, we will be safe. We can’t hurt him for the same reason he cannot hurt us. Perhaps we can even ask him a few questions if the situation permits.”

I’d prepared myself for stronger resistance, but I was glad to have it easy for once. We continued forward. Harper street added another two lanes and opened up into the industrialized, miserable landscape of North Hope. Some of the cars on the street had been smashed up, but more than usual had been spared. A few storefronts had been smashed up on the right-hand side of the street, and a couple of streetlights were damaged, but it was nothing downtown was. The further we went, the less damage there was too until it stopped completely.

Further up the street, was what looked like the bulk of the crowd that had trailed after Isiah. None of them were rioting anymore. They wandered around aimlessly like confused children. Some of them sat on the sidewalk, their heads in their hands. A few cops waved in out of the crowd, asking questions, but my focus wasn’t on that.

“Guess you were right,” Elise said.

Joseph stood around 25 feet away on the street under a lamppost. His three followers sat behind him on the curb. Two of them looked like deflated balloons, while the third thrashed and writhed on the ground. His hands were cuffed behind his back and someone had stuck shackles around his ankles so he couldn’t kick or run away. Joseph didn’t seem to be concerned at all about his struggles. His eyes were scanning the street, looking for any rioters who were left, before they landed on us. 

“We talk to him. He’s too tired to fight us now. This is our chance,” Madame Grace said and before any of us could object, she was walking straight towards him.

“Guess she was being serious about that,” Darius said. “That’s what we get for bringing her.

“He might know something. Just let her talk,” Elise said.

“Did you have something to do with this?” Joseph shouted as we approached. He waved as the crowd further up the street. 

“Fuck no,” Darius shouted back.

Joseph glanced said something to his two, non-cuffed followers then stalked towards us. The same dark, oppressive presence every time he’d seen him surrounded him, but it was weaker now. It didn’t make me shiver like it had the first two times. He might’ve been tired, but maybe I was getting used to him too.

“We had nothing to do with this,” Madame Grace said. She stopped walking and let Isiah come to her. “Did you?”

“If you didn’t, then why was one of yours running around at the front of it?” Joseph asked. He stopped five feet from Madame Grace and crossed his arms. “Or do you think this absurd lie will work better than your first?”

“A third party was responsible. You know that as well I do,” Madame Grace said.

“Oh, do I now?” he asked. 

I may have been getting used to his presence, but I was sure that I would never get used to the way he looked. Everything about him was too sharp and precise. There were no flaws to him. It was like he’d been molded out of clay by an artist who had an obsession with their flaws. Even his suit didn’t look right on him no mattered how well tailored it was. 

“Your masters do,” Madame Grace said.

Joseph laughed. “They might.” His eyes flicked over the rest of us and he grinned. There was no emotion behind it. “It’s good to see you lot again. I missed you at the church. I wanted to hand you your invitations, but you slipped away before I could.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew five small envelopes that had been sealed with wax. “Now is as good of a time as ever though. Please accept them.”

“Yeah, no. We’re not taking those. None of us are interested in going to your dinner party,” Darius said.

“Then I’m not going to tell you where your little friend went,” Joseph replied smoothly.

“We’ll find her without you,” Willow said.

“How long will that take? All night? Longer?” he asked. “I’m sure you’ll find her, but in what state? What if you’re too late?” His face gave nothing away. It was hard steel. He didn’t have a single tell. 

“What happens if we reject your invitations?” I asked.

“You’ll find out when you read them,” he said, waving the invitations around. “Come on now. There is even one for your minder.”

“I’m no one’s minder,” Madame Grace said.

“Well you’re playing the role now aren’t you?” Joseph asked. “Accept them. We still have to get to the bottom of who dug up the Maye family graves, and I think you all might know something about that.”

“Did you stop the riot?” Willow asked.

“I did.”

“How?”

“I’ll tell you if you accept my invitations. I’ll even let you ask a third question,” he said. His eyes hardened. “Accept,” he ordered. The words rang out through the air like a siren song. My hand was moving forward before I could think. I forced it back to my side and scowled.

I was sure that if our fates were up to him, he would’ve tried to kill us there. For whatever reason, Maribelle and Waylon wanted to meet us. Badly. He wouldn’t be offering free information otherwise. He might know where Serenity was too and that was all it took for me to step forward and snatch an invitation out of his hand.

“Fine,” I said. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Elise gasped. “Are you out of your mind?”

“We’re wasting time. Someone had to do something. I’ll go to dinner without you if I have to.” I turned my eyes back to Joseph. “Now tell me where Serenity is.” 

“Will the rest of you accept, or do I only have one taker?” Joseph asked.

“In for a penny,” Darius said and took an invitation. Elise and Willow glanced at one another, then took one for themselves. Both of them glared at me when they did. I didn’t look at them. When this was over, they could yell at me. 

Madame Grace stared at the remaining invitation for a long time. She tapped her cane against the ground rhythmically and stroked her thumb over one of her rings. Just when I was going to demand she make a choice, she sighed and took the envelope. “You children do love getting into trouble, don’t you?”

“It’s what we do best,” Darius replied.

Joseph grinned savagely and smoothed out his suit. “I’m glad we could come to an understanding. I can personally promise that the food will be lovely.”

“You owe us answers,” Willow said. “Tell us how you stopped the riot.”

“And where Serenity is,” I added.

“I stopped the riot by dispersing of all the vile rage a certain individual was carrying with them and replaced it with something much nicer.” He looked back at his followers. “Jeb and Noah donated their lovely calm attitudes to the crowd, while Bobby was the scapegoat for their anger. He’s working through some of it now, as you can see.”

Bobby let out a blood curdling scream. No one moved to help him. The crowd up the street was too far away to care, the police among them were too busy trying to figure out what happened, and none of us could help either. He doubled his trashing, and Jeb and Noah leaned over and pinned him down. 

“Don’t you think we’re a bit past the time for you to be having slaves?” Darius asked. 

“They’re not slaves. They’re my help.”

“Do you pay them?”

“They volunteer.”

Darius smiled. It was as cold as Joseph’s. “I’m going to kill you.”

“I’m sure you’ll try, but if you kill me now, you won’t find out where your friend is.”

“I didn’t say I’d do it now, I was just making a general statement. Just so you were aware.” Darius looked over to Bobby, Jeb, and Noah. Bobby had calmed down, but Jeb and Noah hadn’t made any move to stop pinning him. In the bright yellow light of the street light, they did look like zombies. Their skin was an ashy gray and their movements were too jerky for anything else.

“I’m curious, what’s your plan for Hope? Your grand vision?” Darius asked.

“We need to find Serenity, Darius. Can you please-”

“I’m asking this first,” he replied without looking. His voice was as cold as his smile. Hearing it was scarier than listening to Joseph’s voice.

“There is no grand plan. I, as well as Maribelle and Waylon, want our lovely little town to stay the way it always has been.”

“You want it to stay like this?” Elise asked. They gestured down the street. “It’s rotting away. This place is miserable and it’s only going to get worse.”

“I find It rather lovely. I think I’m not alone in that.”

“You can’t keep it the same,” Willow said. “Things change. They always do.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. Hope is an old town, it’s persevered for generations. Besides, the buildings are less important than the spirit of the place. Objects can be replaced, culture can’t be.”

“Yes, the Southern dream of clinging desperately to the past. I love it,” Darius drawled. “How has that worked out for the rest of the South huh? You going to revive Dixie? Is that why Maribelle and Waylon live on a plantation? Who takes care of those animals? Them?” Darius asked, pointing to where Bobby was still lying on the ground.

“We’re not nearly that ambitious. We only want to preserve Hope, not the world. If everyone else gets to preserve their culture, I don’t see why we shouldn’t get to as well. It’s only fair.”

“Fuck your past,” Darius said. “It’s never going to happen. We’re not doing it again. No one likes it except for crazy fucking white people like you. You’re out of your goddamn mind,” Darius growled. I almost couldn’t believe it. Even though the cold distance in his voice, he sounded like he cared. 

“We’ll see,” Joseph said. He reached into his pocket and came out with a fucking pocket watched, then clicked his tongue and put it away. “Hurry up now. I have places to be and things to do. You have two questions left.”

“Where are Serenity and Isiah?” I asked immediately. “You’re not fucking go anywhere until I know.”

“Who is Isiah?” 

“You know who I’m talking about. Don’t act like you don't,” I said.

“I know a woman by the name of Ruth,” Isiah said. “Do you mean her?”

“You fucking piece of shit. He’s not a woman and you fucking know it,” I said.

“I don’t know that. I believe she is a woman. However, if I were that woman, I might go to the place that tried to help me and do something to it.”

“Coastal State Hospital,” I said. “That’s where.”

“I have good reason to believe that’s where he ran off to,” Joseph said.

There was a knot in my throat. Everything made too much sense too quickly. I swallowed down my fear and did my best to not show any. “Where is the last invitation?” I asked.

He smirked. It looked less like a smile and more like a predator showing off its teeth. “I believe someone is going to meet your friend there and give it to her.”


	20. Must Converge - 3.1

“Back to the waking world now. Come on.”

I didn’t move. Someone snapped their fingers in front of my face. I curled further into myself. Every part of me hurt. I felt like a wrung out towel. I didn’t know where I was or what was going on. Almost all my memories were a blur. There were flashes of pain and anger, but there was nothing solid to wrap onto, and I was tired enough that I couldn’t sort through what any of it meant.

“Get up.”

Beyond the physical pain, something else was wrong. Deep inside my chest, I felt sore in a distinctly unphysical way. It was close to how it felt to lose my anger, but it wasn’t quite a void. There was something there and that something was bruised and beaten in a way that throbbed with pain.

The voice sighed. “I warned you,” it said a second before a wave of freezing cold water soaked me through down to my bones.

I gasped for breath and writhed on the floor until I managed to sit up. I didn’t know if my eyes were open or closed. There was nothing to see. I tried to blink, but every part of me was so fucking cold that I didn’t know if my eyelids even worked. A shiver wracked my body and I pulled my knees into my chest.

“There you are,” the voice purred. “Glad you’re back. Take a minute to get your bearings. I don’t mind.”

I did. What other choice did I have? I pulled my knees in tighter, pushed past the pain deep in my chest, in what I decided to call my soul, and tried to piece together how I’d ended up in a dark, cold room freezing wet.

It didn’t take that long.

I was with Isiah.

I remembered his eyes on me outside of Madame Grace’s shop. I remembered flipping the car. Destroying. Forcing the emotion in the air higher and higher, reveling in the way it felt to have so much power, in how good it was to let all my anger out. How much damage had I done? Had I hurt people? Did I kill someone? Had people seen me?

It all swirled around in my head, a storm of half-baked memories that drove my panic on higher. What the fuck was going on? It was hard to breathe. I was cold and the darkness was suffocating me, sucking all the air out of my lungs. Another shiver wracked my body.

“I know it hurts, but you’ll be fine,” Isiah said.

I flinched hard at the sound of his voice. I wasn’t fine by any stretch of the imagination.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “You haven’t given me a reason to.”

“W-what do you want?” I choked out, my panic rising.

“You to calm down and help me. Would you mind giving me your name? Just for review. Our first introduction was…unideal.”

“I can’t fucking calm down!” I screamed. My voice echoed off the walls of the room. The darkness around me seemed to writhe. Was that in my head, or was Isiah doing that? “Where- where the fuck am I? What is this?” I said quieter.

“Think about it,” Isiah said. “You’ll figure it out.”

Think. Think, think, _think_. I squeezed my eyes and forced myself to take a deep breath. I was freaking out, but that wasn’t going to do me any good. I needed to act. To talk. To find out where I was and find out where the others were. I had to make sure they were okay. Were they here with me? Did Isiah get them too?

Slowly, like ice thawing, a memory came back to me. It was one where Annabelle was screaming at me from the door of Madame Grace’s shop, her eyes furious and scared. Then I remembered why we’d been downtown in the first place and that everyone had gone inside Madame Grace’s shop except for me. That meant they were safe right? They had to be. I couldn’t consider the alternative. If I did, I wouldn’t ever uncurl from my ball.

“Oh Lord, this is taking too long,” Isiah said. “Smell the air. It should be obvious.”

I did. It smelt like gasoline. “You’re- gas?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Gas. Big dark room and gas. And Isiah wasn’t going to hurt me. He wanted me to help him. And the help involved gasoline.

Oh.

“The asylum,” I said.

“There we are,” Isiah said. “Precisely. We’re goin’ to burn it down. And you’re going to help me, but first, introductions again. What’s your name?

“I’m- it’s Serenity,” I said. “I- I can’t see anything. Can you-”

“Yes’m, it’s very dark,” Isiah cut me off. Something flew through the air and landed next to me with a hard thud. I flinched. “A lantern. Use it,” he ordered.

I reached blindly to my left and got a hold of it. I felt plastic under my fingertips. It was modern. I fumbled until my finger found a button covered in rubber and pressed it down.

The area around me flooded with light, but the room was huge enough that much of it stayed in darkness. I swung the lantern around and saw several filthy, broken bath rubs in a row in what I was pretty sure was the center of the room. There were no windows. The door out of the room was half in darkness and half in light. Eight red gas canisters of gas rested in the threshold.

“Feel better?” Isiah asked.

My legs shook as I climbed to my feet. I looked down at my hands and saw that they were streaked were covered in tiny cuts and filthy with dried blood and dirt. My arms were the same. I patted down my body, making sure nothing was broken. All I could feel were more bruises and cuts. I was in one piece. I patted my pockets and found that my phone and lighter were still there. I pulled out my phone and found the entire lock screen filled with missed calls and texts from Annabelle. My heart soared. They were looking, they were okay. I needed to tell them where I was.

“Now don’t go poking at that. We have business first. Put it away,” he commanded.

His words were impossible to disobey. They compelled me to act. My hand jerked and I forced my phone back into the pocket of my shorts before I could stop myself.

“Better,” he drawled.

“Sorry.”

“No need for apologies. I just want to make sure you’re paying attention to me,” Isiah said. “Now, before we get started on this here job, I wanted to have a little talk with you. I think we’ll both find it useful.”

A talk. I could work with that. I had to. “Is that why you brought me here? To help you and talk?”

“That and you were outside when I strolled by. Quite serendipitous don’t you think?:

No. I didn’t find anything about this lucky or good in the slightest, but I buried those emotions deep where he couldn’t find them. “What do you want to talk about?” I asked.

“I found a note the other day. Looked like it was written by a friend of yours. Had your name in it and Madame Grace’s as well. It suggested a meeting between Madame Grace and me. To make an alliance. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Willow’s note. He’d gotten it and this was his reply. “You were supposed to meet with Madame Grace. Not me.”

“You work just as well,” he replied.

I forced myself to stand up a bit straighter. This was important. He said he wasn’t going to hurt me and right now, I believed him. If he wanted to, he had all the time in the world.

“Alright. Okay. Let’s- let’s talk then. Do you want to make an alliance?” I asked.

“I would. We have a mutual enemy it seems.”

“Maribelle and Waylon?”

The darkness in the room encroached on my paltry amount of light, swallowing almost all of it up. I flinched and took a step back.

“That’s their names,” Isiah said.

“They’re alive?”

“Of course they are. You knew that as well as I do.”

“How? It’s not possible. I- how are you alive?”

“Magic.”

It was a useless answer. He had to know that. “How far would you want to take it our pact?” I asked.

“Pact. That’s another good word for this,” Isiah said. “I think it’d be best if our pact was simple. Let’s promise to stay out of each other’s ways. I’ll do no harm to you, y'all do no harm to me. Sound good?”

“You’re trying to destroy Hope. That’s- you’re going to hurt us. We live here.”

“Do you not want to make a deal?”

“No! No I do! It’s just- you’re destroying Hope,” I repeated dumbly, my brain failing to find the words I needed. I shivered again.

“Yes, I am. I’m doing a good job of it too. Maribelle and Waylon aren’t going to stop me, no matter who they put in my way.”

“Why all of Hope? Why not just kill them?” I asked.

Isiah hummed to himself, then asked, “who do you think built this place? Them?”

“Yes?”

“Really? Did they put up the walls? Did they make the roof and windows? Just the two of them?”

“No, of course not. Builders did that.”

“Yes. And who kept me here when I tried to leave? Who held me down and locked me in my room? Do you think it was Maribelle and Waylon every time?”

“No.”

“Then who did it?”

“Orderlies? Umm, nurses?” I tried.

“Now tell me, how did the town react? They knew this…this hospital was here, didn’t they? And what did they do? Nothing. They celebrated it. It made them happy. They sent people way yonder here if they were a bother. Now tell me, did Maribelle and Waylon do that? Did they send me away to this hellhole?

I swallowed. My throat was dry. It made me realize just how thirsty I was. “No.”

“So you understand my point. Maribelle and Waylon didn’t do all of this themselves. They had help. Lots of it. Folks were awfully keen on giving it out. Everyone who helped with this abomination sinned just as much as Maribelle and Waylon did. I’d kill them too if they were still alive, but I have to settle for the two that are alive and the kin of those who helped them.”

“No one here now except Maribelle and Waylon had anything to do with that though. That’s the past. They’re innocent,” I said.

“You believe that?” Isiah asked. “Be honest. No lies. You think they’re all innocent?”

“Not all of them. But some of them are, some of them are good,” I argued.

“Yes, I’m sure some are. That’s why I’m lucky God exists to sort them out for me while I do my work.”

I reached for an argument, scrambling to find some way to convince him he was wrong. “It won’t- It’s not going to change anything. Hope is just one town. It won’t fix anything. There are bad people everywhere.”

“Oh, I know. That’s why, when I’m done here, I’ll move on to the next rotten town. Then another after that, then another until everyone who needs to be punished has been. It will be my life’s work.”

“You’ll never run out of towns.”

“Well, that’s not true. Not all towns are rotten. I’m sure I’ll be forced to stop eventually.”

“How will you even know if you’ve found one?” I asked.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

I was out of arguments. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I might’ve found another way. If Annabelle or Darius were in my position, they might’ve been able to pull it off. I wasn’t either of them though.

 _Useless_.

“If I am being honest, I didn’t plan on bringing you here so soon. I was hoping I’d accomplish more tonight, but a disgusting looking witch stopped me. He was lucky I had more important things to attend to,” Isiah said.

“Disgusting?”

“Yes. He was the ugliest man I’d ever seen, a true abomination, but he’s even more rotten on the inside. There was no warmth inside him. Nothing but malice and sin. I’m certain he’s a pawn of the doctors. I’m going to kill him when I get the chance.”

He. It had to be Joseph. I couldn’t think of anyone else other than Maribelle and Waylon themselves who could’ve stopped Isiah’s riot. “Okay,” I said quietly.

Isiah chuckled. “I apologize. It seems I’ve gotten off track. We were talking about an alliance. I’ve set the terms. Do you agree?” he asked.

“I’m not sure if I can. Madame Grace, she doesn’t want Hope to be destroyed, and if that’s what you’re doing then-”

“Are you saying you plan on stopping me?” he asked. The darkness encroached further until the light from my lamp was snuffed out.

I shook my head. Panic rose in me again. He was going to kill me if I said no. I was sure of it. I had to make the deal. “No. No, we’ll stay out of your way. I promise we will. I swear.”

“Good. I would like it more if the lot of you leave Hope. It would make this much easier for me,” Isiah said.

“I want to. I’m going to.”

“Good. Tell your friends and your Madame Grace to do the same.”

“I don’t- I don’t know if they’ll listen,” I replied.

“Then tell them I’ll kill them if they don’t.”

“I- not until Maribelle and Waylon are gone. We made a deal with Madame Grace that we wouldn’t go until they were dead.”

“Fine. After I’ve killed the doctors, you go. Agreed?” Isiah asked.

There was no choice. “Yes.”

The darkness retreated, giving me back my little circle of light. I’d never been more relieved.

“Good. Now that we’re done with that, let’s do our job. Grab a can,” he ordered.

Burning down the asylum was a crime on a level that was hard for me to comprehend. There wasn’t a single person who didn’t know about it. It was an urban legend. Burning it was going to cause attention and if a single person accused me of ding it, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand up under the scrutiny, especially since I had no idea what I’d done during the riot.

I couldn’t do it for free.

“I- I don’t work for free,” I pushed out, testing the waters.

“I’m sorry?” he asked. “What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”

“I don’t work for free. I already- I helped you already. With your riot. If you want me to help you- I need something. Payment.”

He let out a booming, deep laugh. “Payment!” he shouted. “Yes, I’m sorry. Of course, you will. What would you like to be paid?”

I needed something good, something useful, but something that wouldn’t offend him. He still had all the cards here. I said the first thing I could think of. “Would you tell me a story?” I asked.

“A story?”

“About how you became a witch,” I said. “Please. I’ll tell you my own too. I just want to know.”

“Payment in the form of a story,” he said. “I think I can make that work. But we’re running short on time. I’ll tell you as we work. Let’s get to it.”

The darkness around Isiah swallowed up three of the gas cans, then I heard the sound of liquid hitting the floor. I stumbled forward and grabbed one for myself, uncapped it, and mimicked him. The smell of gas so thick in the air made me gag and I was so tired that I could barely lift the gas can, but I couldn’t stop now.

“I found out what magic was because of the doctors,” Isiah said. “They would talk to one another about emotion and feelings. About power and control, but the way they did it didn’t make a lick of sense. They weren’t talking about the people they had locked up here. They were talking about themselves.”

I covered my side of the floor with gasoline and still had half the container left. I didn’t hear him pouring out any more gas.

“I had that realization right here, in this room,” he said. The darkness shifted forward and then a hand emerged from the darkness a few feet away from me and into my circle of light. Isiah rested it on the rim of one of the bathtubs. His hand was bony and thin. His skin ashy and cracked with age. It made it seem like Isiah was more walking corpse than man.

Maybe he was.

“I’d been forced into this tub right here. It was full of freezing water. And the doctors watched. They didn’t care that I was struggling, they ignored my screams, and with every second that passed, I lost a bit more fight. The cold saps your strength and I was being held in there. I could only fight for so long.”

The air was heavy with emotion. I could feel it now. It was a mix of sadness and anger. Of suffering and pain. It hurt to feel and I was sure it was only a small sample of what Isiah had felt then. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“But as I am being held still, I notice something. I wasn’t just weak from the cold. The cold didn’t make me hate the doctors less, but in that tub and in that moment, I stopped loathing them as much. They were taking my very hatred from me, draining it away when I was helpless. Only when I got out of the tub and settled down to sleep that night did I realize they did that all the time, but not just with my hate, but with all my emotions.” His hand slipped back into the darkness and I heard him walk out the door. “Come on. Grab another can. We have more work to do.

I followed, picking up another can as I went. When I got out in the hall, I heard liquid hitting the floor and Isiah humming under his breath from across the right side of the catwalk.

“Take the left side and go around, then meet me by the stairs,” he shouted. His voice boomed around across the asylum. I looked over the railing walkway and down to the floor below. It looked like a true abyss. I wondered what he had done with the guards. Shouldn’t they have been here?

I walked to the left and left a trail of gasoline behind me, making my way around the catwalk. I kept looking across the building into the darkness, trying to keep track of Isiah, but he’d gone quiet. I dug deep for what little courage I had left. I needed him to talk more. He needed to finish his story. “What did you do after you found out they were taking your emotions?” I shouted.

“I noticed more things,” he called back. “The doctors looked too good for their age. Too flawless. They never seemed to age. They were keeping themselves in their prime, preventing their deaths, all at my and all their other prisoners' expense.”

He was across the room now. At least, I was pretty sure. He sounded like he was. That was good enough. I let the distance give me courage. “Did you do the same?” I asked. “Is that how you’re alive?”

He scoffed. “No. I wish I could have. We may both stay alive, but unlike them, I failed to make myself perfect. I wasn’t careful enough. It’s my deepest regret. When I tried to change my body into what it was supposed to be, my thoughts ran too wild. I couldn’t focus on what I wanted. I hadn’t learned enough and in my impatience, I ruined myself.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

 _Is that why you hide?_ I thought, but I didn’t dare voice it. I knew how he felt. That crawling, bone deep feeling of wrong that being in my skin caused me. I couldn’t blame him for trying to fix it himself when no one around him offered help or even believed what he was saying.

“Can’t you fix it?” I asked. “Change yourself again?”

“No. Some scars are permanent,” he said. “I made my body that of a monster’s and I can’t see myself any differently now. I never could. My skin was never right and will remain that way for the rest of my life.”

My heart hurt for him. For someone who was like me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, louder this time. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. About what they did,” I said. “No one- no one deserves that. You never should’ve been trapped here.”

He went quiet for a few tortuously long seconds before he spoke again. “You’re like me, aren’t you? I can see it, but you changed yourself somehow. Without magic. How?”

“Hormones? I just take pills,” I said.

“Hormones,” he repeated like he was trying the word out. “So they gave you hormones instead of locking you away.”

Well, if ordering them for shady grey markets online counted as someone giving them to me, then yes. “Sort of,” I said.

He laughed. There was no humor in his voice. “If only I was born later,” he said wistfully.

We lapsed into silence again. I kept dumping out my gas. I wanted to hear more of his story though. I didn’t want to drop it now. “How did you learn to do magic?” I asked.

“Same as how I learned it existed, by listening to the doctors,” Isiah replied. I thought I could hear a hint of relief in his voice. “They spilled their secrets into the air and I kept them all. I practiced what they did, learned how to draw in the misery they created, and I learned how to make myself strong.”

“Is that how-”

“I said we could talk as we worked. Keep moving,” he ordered.

I dragged my feet and go closer to the stairs. My first gas can ran out, so I left it behind me, uncapped the second, and continued pouring spreading the gas out. “Is that how you escaped here? Magic?” I asked.

“It is. After I made my body a monster’s, I learned how to hide. To change people’s emotions so they ignored me and left me alone. I became invisible to all the nurses and others here. I used that time to learn more and plan my escape,” he said. His voice was getting closer. He was purposefully matching my pace. We were going to arrive at the stairs at the same time.

“However, I couldn’t hide forever. The doctors noticed I was missing after a month and went looking. They found me squirreled away in my room, hiding from them. I tried to do to them what I did to the others, but it didn’t work on them. They brushed it off. There was no denying what I had learned then. They closed my door, locked it, and told me they were going to kill me.”

I reached the staircase. The whites of Isiah’s eyes lit up with the light of my lantern. They were more yellow than I thought. He stepped closer and felt his breath brushed across my face. It smelt foul. I shrunk back.

“Of course, I wasn’t going to die. Not that day. They weren’t going to kill me. I’d spent so much timing, that I sunk back into the shadows, let them swallow me whole, and forced all the light out of that miserable room. Then, I destroyed them.”

We stared at one another before Isiah’s eyes sunk back into shadows and I heard him walk down the stairs. “Second floor now. Come on.”

We left a thick trail of gasoline behind us on the stairs, then covered the second floor walk with gas. I didn’t step into any of the rooms. Isiah didn’t either. The smell of gasoline so thick in the air added to my already throbbing headache, but I pressed on, desperate for more information. “Destroyed them?” I asked into the darkness.

“I raked my nails across both of their faces until I couldn’t feel anything but their blood. I tore away their beauty like they tore away my life, in every way I could, then I left them in a puddle of blood. After that, I walked out the front door and to freedom.” He took a deep breath. “It was the second greatest mistake of my life. I should’ve killed them. I should’ve dragged them out of the asylum and hung them in front of the door. But I didn’t. I wanted them to suffer like me. To walk around scarred and ruined, in bodies that they hated. And that, dear Serenity, is the story of how I became a witch.”

I didn’t know what to say. If I should say anything at all. Isiah’s tone was light, so matter of fact as he’d spoken. I wondered how many times he had gotten to tell his story.

I wondered how many people ever cared to listen.

“Thank you for telling me,” I said.

“Now tell me yours. You promised.”

I took a deep breath. I could do this.

“I found out magic was real from Madame Grace. In exchange for gifts, She sent me and my friends to dig up Maribelle and Waylon’s grave. I did, but someone saw us there, but she didn’t stop us. We got away. Then we went to tell Madame Grace that the doctors’ bodies weren’t in their coffin when uh, the abomination you mentioned stopped by. He wanted to kill us for digging up the doctors’ graves.”

“Oh? Fascinating. You’re so young to be getting into so much trouble. How old are you Serenity?”

“18,” I replied.

“18! And what do you do? Do you work Serenity?”

“No, I go to the University. To school.”

Isiah laughed. “A better life than I had, but go on now. Tell me more about how you became a witch. Your life is so interesting dear.”

I wasn’t a fan of the term of endearment, but I’d rather have Isiah endeared to me than wanting to kill me. I swallowed and picked up where I left off.

“To avoid getting killed by the abomination, Madame Grace offered us a deal. She would teach us how to do magic, and we would help her kill Maribelle and Waylon. And that’s it. That’s how I’m a witch.”

“Did the abomination give you the bruise on your face? It’s almost faded now.” Isiah asked.

“No.”

I reached the left side staircase and then Isiah’s eyes were back in front of me, peering through the dark. One floor to go.

“You’re out of gas Serenity,” he said.

“Isn’t this enough? Don’t you think we could just set in on fire and leave now?”

“No, like to be thorough. I won’t make the same mistake twice,” he replied, then sighed. “It appears I’ll have to go upstairs for the cans we left behind. You can stay here. Take a break. I’ll return shortly,” he said.

His eyes sunk back into the darkness as the darkness itself surged forward. It snuffed out my light and consumed me. I shut my eyes and fought off the urge to scream. The dark was full of sharp, cutting emotion. It was like standing in a shover of razors. I thought it couldn't get worse, but then Isiah's shoulder brushed against mine and I doubled over in pure agony. It felt like someone was tearing that fragile spot in my soul wide open. I dropped to my knees and shivered. I was still, so, so cold. Why was the asylum so cold? It was supposed to be summer.

“Oh, I apologize,” Isiah said. His hand touched my shoulder and the agony drained away, leaving me hollow and shaking, he pulled his hand back. “Yes, take a minute. I didn’t intend to terrify you.”

I didn’t believe that. Not for a second. He’d done it on purpose so I couldn’t leave. Isiah’s footsteps retreated, along with his darkness, and my little circle of light returned. My legs and hands were covered with gasoline and for a second, I was afraid Isiah was going to set the fire and leave me in the asylum to burn alive.

I couldn’t let that happen.

I staggered up to my feet and leaned against the wall for support. My heart pounded as quick as a hummingbird's and my legs were unsteady beneath me. I wouldn’t be able to get to the bottom floor and out the door before Isiah came back downstairs. Escape was impossible. My only hope was that he wasn’t going to kill me or that Annabelle, Darius, and the others were coming to bail me out.

Annabelle.

My breath caught and I tore my phone out of my pocket, then called Annabelle back, praying— even though I believed in no god— that she was going to answer.

She did on the first ring.

“Serenity? Is that you?” she asked.

She was alive and I was alive. We were okay. The sound of her voice cleaved away some of my panic. “It’s me. I’m alive.”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“The asylum. With- I’m with Isiah. We’re burning it down.”

“You’re fucking _what_? No, don't answer that. I don’t care. Not now.”

“Is that her?” I heard Darius ask.

“It is,” Annabelle replied. “Okay, we’re coming Serenity. Just hold on. I promise I’m going to get you.”

“Okay.”

“I fucking-”

“Hello,” Isiah’s voice boomed. I looked up the stairs, but it was a waste of time. He was invisible in the dark. “Phones were a great invention. We have made so much progress in such a short time, haven’t we? If you were alive when I was a child with that, people would’ve called you a witch just for having it.

“Who is that?” Annabelle asked. “Is that Isiah?”

“Do you want to talk to Madame Grace?” I asked.

“No, we already had that negotiation. There is no need. Let’s finish our work, and then you can talk to your friends. Hang up, now,” he commanded, pressing magic into his words.

My fingers moved without my consent and ended the call. My hands shook.

“Take two of these. We’ll make this quick. I’ve been keeping you a while,” Isiah said. Two bright red cans of gas materialized out of the darkness and landed in my circle of light at my feet. “Before we were interrupted, you were telling me about how you got the bruise on your face. Please go on,” he said as he walked past me and down the last flight of stairs.

I followed after him, a mix of terrified, cold, and angry. The three emotions formed a maelstrom inside of me. It felt like I was about to slip away out of my body like I’d done at the prison. I fought viciously against the urge. I needed to stay right here.

“I was arrested for something, and when I got arrested, they put me in a cell with the men. One guy didn’t like me. So he hit me. The police let him. That’s it. That’s how I got my bruise,” I said.

“They put a woman in with the men?” Isiah asked. We reached the foot of the stairs and the whites of his reappeared. He was looking at me. “I’ll take revenge in your name.”

What?

“Revenge?” I asked.

“Yes. Revenge. You and I, we’re not so different, are we? You promised to leave once Maribelle and Waylon are dead, and you’ve helped me a great deal tonight. I can lend you the same kindness. I’ll ensure I punish the police for what they did to you.”

It was tempting to stay silent. The police had never done me any favors, and the idea of Isiah tearing them apart didn’t make me shed any tears. But then I remembered Annabelle’s face when she looked at me in the waffle house, her eyes furious and mouth hard.

“Don’t kill them. I don’t want that,” I said.

“I was going to destroy them anyway. They should have never treated a woman the way-”

“Stop! I’m not a woman, don’t- don’t fucking call me one Christ!” I shouted. “That’s not what I want. None of this.”

“You’re not?” Isiah asked. He sounded genuinely confused. “What are you then?”

“I’m me. I’m not just a man or just a woman. I’m both? And Neither? it’s complicated okay?”

“We have time. Explain yourself,” Isiah ordered. His eyes faded and I heard his footsteps trail away to the other side of the room. “But please, work while you do.”

I uncapped one of the gas cans and started to spread it, trying to think of what I was supposed to say. Putting words to how I felt was never easy. It was hard enough to put together how I felt when I wasn’t freezing cold and covered in gas. I decided to go with the simplest, easiest explanation I could.

“Sometimes I feel like a man, sometimes I feel like a woman, sometimes I feel like neither. And that’s that.”

“That’s that,” Isiah repeated.

“Gender is- it’s fake. I think. It’s stupid.”

“Fake? It seems very real to me,” Isiah replied.

I started to respond when my little circle of light revealed two bodies lying to one another on the floor. They belonged to the guards I’d seen at the asylum weeks ago. One young. One old. The young one had his head twisted backward, his face resting against the floor, while the old one had a hand clutched over his heart. His mouth and dark brown eyes were wide with fear. Bile rose in my throat. I retreated so my light didn't touch them anymore.

“You killed them,” I said. “You- they’re dead. You killed them?”

“Oh? Those men?” Isiah asked. “I’m afraid I did. They were protecting a monument to suffering and tried to stop me. They were preserving the most rotten aspects of this god-forsaken town. I punished them for it,” Isiah said casually. “Does that offend you?”

“They were just doing their jobs.”

“They should have picked different ones then. Now go on, you were telling me that gender was fake?”

I shut my eyes. Did he want a lecture on gender theory? Fine. Anything so I could make it out alive.

I filled the air with all the things I’d read. All the books, and videos and talks I’d had with other people as I spread gasoline throughout the halls of the bottom floor of the asylum, following in Isiah’s wake. I’d never felt more ridiculous in my life. The sheer absurdity of what I was doing threatened to make me laugh, but I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t stop. That I’d laugh until I couldn't breathe and never make it out of this fucking asylum alive.

“All done,” Isiah declared, once we were back in the main lobby. “Let’s leave now and you can return to your friends. I appreciate your help tonight.”

“I can leave?”

“You can. Do you know the way out?”

“I think?”

“Lead the way. I’ll follow behind you. I wouldn’t want you to be left behind.”

I headed towards the hall that led to the front doors. As promised, Isiah followed behind me. I heard the sound of gas splashing on the floor as he went. I picked up my pace. Isiah did too. The front doors appeared ahead of me and with a cry of joy, I pushed them open and burst outside.

“Hello Serenity,” two voices sounded off in unison.

Standing ahead of us, under the light of the security office a mere twenty feet away, stood a man and a woman. The man was dressed in an old fashioned dark suit, with a brown vest and a crisp white undershirt. He wore a top hat with the brim tilted down, casting his face in shadow and concealing it from my eyes. Next to him, a woman stood in a truly massive yellow hoop skirt embroidered with white flowers. She had on a pair of long white gloves that went up to her elbows, and a sheer white veil hung over her face, concealing it as well.

Maribelle and Waylon.

“Oh my, would you look at that,” Isiah said from behind me. He stepped outside and his darkness coalesced next to me, a void in the night. At least I knew where he was now. “You came to the funeral of your building. I’m touched.”

“I see you’ve collected more creatures like yourself,” Waylon said dryly. His voice was smooth and clear, the kind a cult leader or politician would wield. It demanded attention. “I’ve heard about you, Serenity. You dug up my grave, interfered with one of my preachers, and now you’re helping a psychopath burn down a mental institution. Perhaps you could’ve benefited from some time in there as well.”

“Fuck you,” I spat.

“Rude. To think we were here to offer you an invitation to our party,” Maribelle said.

“I don’t want your invitation. I’m not going,” I said.

“You are,” Waylon said. “Like it or not. If you’ll accept a maniac's invite to commit arson, a dinner party should be perfectly doable.”

“I didn’t invite Serenity. They didn’t know they would be here in advance. It was all a pleasant coincidence. I can’t say the same for you, unless you’re here to let me kill you,” Isiah said.

“Did Ruth tell you she killed several patients at the hospital during her time here?” Maribelle asked. Her voice was like honey oozing out of a honeycomb. Sweeter than Annabelle’s at her best and more soothing than Darius’s by far. It would’ve made me feel safe if it wasn’t so wrong. It was like too sweet candy or too much pleasure. Her voice was an angler fish's light, dangerous and scary more than pleasing.

“They were already dead,” Isiah growled. “You left them husks and used them as slaves. Killing them was a mercy.”

“They were people,” Waylon said. “You killed them for your power. We helped them get better. They were on a path to recovery.”

“You drained the emotion and life from them until there was nothing left!” Isiah shouted.

“Some of them yes. It was regrettable but needed for treatment. We tried to help them and failed. Others were never touched by magic, but you took them too,” Maribelle said. “And please Ruth, calm down. I know you’ve battled hysteria your whole life, but this is taking things too far. All we ever wanted was to help you be better.”

“Better? What the fuck is better?” I asked. “Why was he even here?”

“She,” Waylon corrected.

“He,” I snarled.

“You’re deluded too and so rude. It’s vile,” Maribelle sighed. “There is little I hate more than the rude, but perhaps you can’t help it. Many of my patients in the past couldn’t, but I still cured them, just as I could cure you. It’s better than what the monster next to you can give.”

“A monster?” Isiah laughed. “Me? I’m not the one who stripped people of their humanity and left them to die locked in their rooms. I’m not the one who built a monument to torturing those you disagreed with.”

“Reality is factual,” Maribelle quipped. “If we disagree on it, one of us is right, and the other is wrong. I trust myself to be more correct than those who were here, considering the state of their mental health. You act as if everyone who entered these walls never left, but many did. They were better. Because of us. We helped people. You kill them.”

“You live in a reality where you only see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear. Arguing with you is worthless,” Isiah growled. “I’m going to put your monument up in flames and you can’t stop me."

A light flashed so brightly that it blinded me. It felt like someone had stabbed an icepick through both my eyes and into my brain. Tears of pain ran down my face and I crouched down, huddling in on myself as I waited to adjust. Waylon, Maribelle, and Isiah were all shouting, but it went in one ear and out there. I blinked away the blurriness and pain, then got back to my feet.

The twenty feet between Maribelle and Waylon and us was lit up so brightly lit looked like it was daytime. Maribelle and Waylon had somehow made the light they stood behind turn into a miniature sun. Both of them were standing, tensed like they were about to run a race. They were staring at Isiah. Both of their faces were uncovered. Maribelle’s veil had been flipped over her head and Isiah’s hat was on the floor beside him

Isiah had understated what he’d done to them.

Both of their faces were destroyed beyond recognition. I could just barely make out the line of their mouths. And their eyes Everything else was a mess of angry red flesh. It didn’t even look scarred. Scarred implied that, at some point, the cuts had healed. Whatever Isiah had done to them never had. The wounds were still fresh. I expected blood to start pouring out of them at any moment.

I glanced at Isiah and saw that the light had peeled the darkness he hid himself away in, allowing me to see him in the flesh. He was a wraith of a man. He looked like a skeleton someone had grafted skin on top of. His eyes and mouth were sunk deeply into his head, so far that they looked like holes someone had drilled. His bone went up and down like a roller coaster. His right hip was a good two inches higher than his left, and his legs were uneven lengths. There wasn’t a single hair on his head or anywhere else on his body. He wore a suit that sagged off of his body like it was attempting to escape.

“You’re working with a monster, Serenity,” Maribelle said. “He ruined himself, then ruined us. He’d see everyone in Hope dead. That everyone includes you. Do the right thing.”

“The only monsters here are y'all,” Isiah replied.

The air was heavier than I’d ever felt it before. I’d thought that Joseph’s presence had been terrifying, but it was nothing compared to the emotion that Isiah, Maribelle, and Waylon were letting flow freely into the air. It made me feel like I was standing at the center of a massacre. The spot in my hole that Isiah had torn open grew, consuming more and more of my insides until it felt like I was about to fly apart at the seams.

“Serenity, ignite the fire,” Isiah ordered.

“Wha- huh? I- fire? Why? You?” I mumbled. I was sure that I wasn’t making sense, but I couldn’t be blamed. Nothing about what was happening made sense to me.

“He can’t. We’re stopping him. If he takes his attention off of us, if he becomes distracted for a single moment, we’ll kill him. Do the right thing and hit him, Serenity. End this now,” Waylon said.

“All will be forgiven if you do,” Maribelle added. “We’ll tell Joseph to stop looking for you. We’ll get the police off your back. We can even make sure you graduate with no problems. Perhaps we can find you a job after. Hope is our town and if you take care of it, we’ll take care of you.”

“Liars,” Isiah shouted. “Nothing y'all say is true! You swore that you were helping us when you drowned people in water and drilled into their heads, but all you were doing was killing them!”

“Distract him,” Waylon said.

“Burn it,” Isiah countered.

The emotion grew stronger. Gravity did along with it. At any moment, I was going to pass out or die. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and if that happened, I would die. I’d never been more sure of it in my life. I looked back at the asylum, then at Maribelle and Waylon. The choice should’ve been obvious. Isiah was going to slaughter Hope, he’d made that much clear. He would see it burned down before anything else.

But I couldn’t side with Maribelle and Waylon. Never with tortures. None of this would’ve happened if they had let Isiah go free or if they hadn’t tried to kill him. I wasn’t going to help them finish what they’d tried all the years ago.

“Serenity! Burn it!” Isiah howled.

I imagined the asylum burning, but I couldn’t get the image right in my head. Even flooded in the light, it looked too big and intimidating to be brought down with just fire. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my lighter, then stumbled towards the asylum.

“What are you doing!” Maribelle screamed. “Isiah! It’s going to burn it down!”

It. It. It. It. I wasn’t human to them. Isiah wasn’t human to them. I collapsed a few feet away from the door, my light gripped tight in my hand. I needed to get it lit. There were so many fumes in the air. Those fumes had to be flammable too. All I had to do was flick my light on and all the gas we’d dumped inside the asylum would ignite. The building would go up in flames. I might go up in flames with it, but I was going to die if I didn’t do something anyway.

I flicked the lighter on and latched onto all the emotion swirling through the air, then pushed into the thought of the fumes igniting. It was the worst thing I’d ever felt. I was certain that I’d set myself on fire from the inside out, just like the fire in the asylum. 

I screamed as the fire consumed me completely.


	21. Must Converge - 3.2

I was alive.

At least, I was pretty sure I was. I was thinking, which meant I had to be alive right? If I was dead, I wouldn’t be able to think. There would be nothing. Just a void. Or maybe I’d been wrong all along and that wasn’t what happened when you died. Was this the afterlife? Was I waiting to be judged?

No. I couldn’t be. I hurt too much for that. My very bones ached. I tensed my muscles experimentally and was rewarded with another fresh burst of pain. There was a deep pain past my chest and onto my very soul, raw and dark. It hurt whenever I thought about it, but that elated me more than it scared me. It was proof I was alive. Oh fuck I was alive. Somehow, even after I’d set my insides on fire and the inferno consumed me inside and out, I was alive.

Had Isiah saved me? Had Madame Grace? All the possibilities swam in my head, but I couldn’t think too hard about any of them. My brain wouldn’t let me. It was too busy screaming at me to shut the fuck up and relax so I didn’t hurt myself anymore. Naturally, I didn’t listen. 

It took more effort than it should’ve to force my eyes open a slit. At first, everything was too bright. My eyes watered, but I didn’t shut them. I’d adjust and I needed to figure out where the fuck I was before I listened to what my body was telling me.

When the tears cleared and my eyes adjusted to the light, I found myself in a dimly lit room that smelled like incense and old wood. I was laying on a soft bed, with a blanket pulled up to my chest. It was hand sewn. Annabelle didn’t own anything handmade, and my parents’ house sure as hell didn’t smell like incense. There was only one place I could. I had to be at Madame Grace’s.

I pulled my arms out from under the blanket and found that they’d been wrapped up in tight white bandages to halfway down my hands. I flexed each of my fingers, making sure they all still worked, then did the same with the rest of my muscles, working past the pain instead of stopping this time. It hurt like I was tonguing the nerve of a shattered tooth, but the pain was worth knowing I was still in one piece. When I finished, I let out a quiet sigh of relief.

As soon as I did, the room flooded with light. I turned my head and saw Willow standing to my right, a curtain half draped over their body. Their eyes met mine for a split second before they walked over, leaned down, and pulled me into a tight, bone-crushing hug. 

“You’re okay. You’re okay,” they chanted. They squeezed me even tighter.

Their fear and concern, as tangible to me as the temperature in the room, hit me like a punch to the gut. Their emotions were a steady, heavy rain inside of them, but the longer we hugged, the lighter the rain got. It stopped hurting and started feeling good, like how you’d feel after a nice stretch. A tiny portion of the dark void in my soul knitted shut and I hugged Willow tighter in return. Maybe whatever I’d done to myself was fixable.

I started to speak but found my mouth and throat bone dry. The feeling took precedence over everything else. “Water please?” I groaned into Willow’s shoulder, my voice coming out as a hoarse whisper.

Willow pulled away and grabbed a bottle of water from where it sat on the nightstand, then brought it to my lips. “Drink,” they commanded. 

“I can hold it.”

“Drink.”

I relented and let Willow give me little sips from the bottle until it no longer felt like I was dying of thirst. They put the bottle away, then grabbed two white pills off the nightstand and showed them to me. “Painkillers. They’re Darius’s. He says they’re safe and they’re very strong. Do you want them?” 

“Yeah,” I said, without any hesitation. I lifted a hand and held it open. “I can take them myself. Really.” 

Willow gave me a skeptical look, but dropped the pills in my hand anyway and handed me the bottle of water. I swallowed both of them down. I didn’t know if they would make my insides feel better, but at least they’d help with other pain. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Annabelle and Darius are asleep here. Elise went home. I don’t know where Madame Grace is.”

Everyone was safe. It was better news than knowing I was alive. I sunk back into the bed. “Can you get Annabelle and Darius for me?” 

They nodded, then pulled aside the curtain and shouted, “Serenity is awake!” 

“What?” Darius said after a moment's pause. His voice heavy with sleep. 

“Serenity is awake,” Willow repeated.

“Fuck yes,” Annabelle said. I heard her stand up. “Get out of the way. Let me see her,” she demanded.

Willow took a seat at the edge of Madame Grace’s bed. Annabelle and Darius pulled aside the curtain and entered the room behind them. Annabelle made her way straight towards me, fire in her eyes. “You’re so fucking lucky. So fucking lucky Serenity. I could kill you right now. Do you realize how close you were to dying? Do you?” she demanded.

“Yeah.”

She glared at me, then leaned down and wrapped me up in her arms. Darius joined her. Just like Willow, I could feel their emotions flowing through them. Annabelle’s were strung uptight, like strings on a harp, while Darius’s were slow and steady, like a river cutting across the earth. It was such a strange mix. I tried to puzzle out more detail, but when I tried, the bruise inside me hurt even more. 

“We were worried about you,” Darius said as he and Annabelle pulled away. “You were pretty fucked up when we found you.”

“What happened? Who saved me?” I asked. 

“When we got to the asylum, it was one fire and you were passed the fuck out. Isiah, Maribelle, and Waylon were having a staring contest and letting you lay there. When they saw Madame Grace and the rest of us coming, they looped her into their game. We ran in and dragged you away. Isiah let us. He told us to tell you that he said thank you too,” Annabelle recounted. “So why the fuck did he do that? What did you do? Why were you in his riot to begin with?” 

“Chill. One question at a time,” Darius said. He looked down at me and winced theatrically. “Like I said, you’re a bit fucked up, you sure you want to do this right now?”

“I’m can talk,” I replied.

“Why did you join Isiah’s riot?” Annabelle asked again.

The memories were hazy, but I did my best to recall them. “I don’t know. I saw his eyes on the street, and everything went red. I couldn’t think anymore. I was just pissed and I wanted to hurt things. So I did.”

“So you did,” Annabelle drawled. “Well, that’s illuminating. Thanks for that.”

“It was magic. What was I supposed to do?” I snapped. “It’s not like I could fight him.”

“You should’ve been inside with me and Darius! You shouldn’t have been out there alone! Even Elise made it in before you! You were reckless and stupid and-”

“Stop,” Willow ordered. “No shouting. Be calm. Serenity just woke up.”

Annabelle gritted her teeth. “You called me when you were in the asylum. Do you remember that?” 

“I do,” I said.

“What did you do inside of there?” Annabelle asked.

“Just poured gas on the floor,” I said. “That’s it. I told you that. I talked to Isiah and dumped gas everywhere. We were burning it down.” 

“Were you going to self-immolate? Because you were covered in gas when we found you. Annabelle thought Isiah was trying to set you on fire too,” Darius said. 

“What else was I supposed to think?” Annabelle replied.

“He wasn’t going to kill me. He promised not to,” I said.

“If he wasn’t trying to kill you, why were you covered in gas and passed out when we found you?”

The memory of setting the asylum on blaze hit me in a way it hadn’t before. For a split second, I was back there on the ground, pouring everything I had into a lost ditch effort. I was on fire again.

“You’re hurting her,” Willow said. They leaned over me protectively. “Stop.”

The memory faded as quickly as it came, leaving me gasping for air. I took a deep breath. I could hold it together. I wasn't there anymore.“It’s fine. Just hurts to think about,” I grunted. “I was in gas because I got in on me when we were spreading it. I passed out because I had to set the asylum on fire with magic.”

“Why didn’t Isiah do it if he’s so powerful?” Darius asked curiously. 

“He couldn’t. That staring match you were talking about? That was the three of them fighting with magic. He couldn’t give any attention to the asylum. I think at least. That’s what he said.”

“He wasn’t lying,” Willow confirmed. “I don’t know what the three of them were doing, but I felt it too. They’re very powerful. It was scary.”

I laughed. Willow said it so matter of factly and wasn’t this all a bit ridiculous? Magical staring matches weren’t something that I ever thought I’d hear discussed with such gravity. Sure, I was almost dead because of that staring match, but that only made it funnier.

“You good?” Darius asked.

“Fine. I’m fine,” I panted. It hurt to laugh. It hurt my chest down to my core, and the very tips of my toes, but it was good too. It was nice to not take everything so fucking seriously.

“So you passed out from lighting the asylum on fire?” Annabelle asked. “Why? Did it hurt?”

“So fucking bad Annabelle. It hurt so much. I thought I burned myself alive. But I didn’t. So that’s good I guess. Good job me,” I laughed again.

“Yes. Good job,” Annabelle said crossly. She crossed her arms. “Are you still in pain? Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere.”

She dragged her hand down her face. “Everywhere. Thanks. That’s so fucking helpful. I’ll make a note of that.”

“Good,” I replied.

“She’s out of it,” Darius said. “Or getting there at least. Can we wrap this up?”

“I’m okay, I’m still here.”

“Are you?”

I thought about it. The pain was starting to dull and I was starting to feel heavy and tired like I was sitting in a bathtub full of hot water with the air full of steam. If I didn’t hurt so much, I would’ve enjoyed the sensation much more. “I’m good, but what were those pills, Darius? They’re strong.”

“Oxycodone,” he replied.

“Why do you have those?”

“When people are dying, they’re in a lot of pain. My mom has a whole stash of painkillers back at her house, so I borrowed a few when I went to college.”

“Wait, have you been taking those?” Annabelle asked.

“Are you asking me if I’ve taken them before or if I’m taking them now?”

“Darius!”

“I’m not, I’m not,” Darius said, holding up his hands. “You can’t drink on opiates anyway so-”

“That is the shittiest fucking reason-”

“Let’s stay on topic. You can yell at me later. It’s Serenity’s turn right now,” Darius interrupted. “I promise I’m being responsible. Don’t worry.”

Annabelle gave him a look that said she didn’t believe a word he was saying. She was a second away from pushing the issue. I stopped her before she could.

“Wait, wait, wait! I want to ask y'all some questions,” I exclaimed. “What happened to me after the riot started. I don’t remember.”

“You screamed, then flipped a car and off with Isiah. That’s all we saw,” Willow intoned.

“How far did we go? Did we destroy campus?”

“Some of it, but campus is supposed to be open Monday, so whatever happened wasn’t too bad,” Darius said. “As for how far it went, it stopped on Harper Street a bit before city hall. We saw Joseph there. He was the one who stopped the riot. He stole the emotion from two of his slaves and gave it to the crowd, then forced the crowd's anger into his slave and tied him up. He probably did more, but that was what I saw. He was the one who told us you were at the asylum.”

“He gave us invitations too,” Willow added.

“Slaves? What? You mean the people we saw when we met him the first time?”

“Yup. “They’re walking husks of people that he uses like objects. What other word should I use?”

“No, you’re right. Just- I’m sorry,” I said. I tapped my head. “I’m a bit fuzzy.”

“It’s fine. I told him I was going to kill him,” Darius said nonchalantly. 

That should’ve been worrying to hear, but in my current state, it seemed perfectly logical. Why wouldn’t Darius try and kill Joseph? He deserved it.

“Maribelle and Waylon are awful too. Maybe worse. If we’re killing Joseph too…” I trailed off.

“They’re on the list,” Darius said.

“Jesus fuck, stop talking about killing people,” Annabelle hissed. “Enough people almost died yesterday.”

“I was making conversation,” Darius replied.

“Then talk about the invitations, not murder.”

“Maribelle mentioned them to me too. She said it was for a dinner party?” I asked.

“Yes. All of us have been invited to a dinner party at the Maye estate. Annabelle graciously accepted on our behalf,” Darius explained.

“Fuck you, I had to do it. We needed to find Serenity and he knew where she was. I don’t regret it,” Annabelle said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s fine. I took one too.” Darius’s eyes flicked up in thought. “If I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure we were going to end up there anyway.”

“So we’re going to do a dinner party with Maribelle, Waylon, and Joseph? That’s what we agreed to?”

“Yes and if don’t go, they’re going to kill us,” Darius said.

“Weren’t they already going to do that?”

That threat was at the end of the letter, and they made it sounds like they’d been letting us slide so far, so…” Darius shrugged.

“Great,” I mumbled and shut my eyes. Sleep was starting to sound very appealing again. “I can’t wait.”

“We have time. The party is a week from now. Hopefully, you’re all good by then.”

All good. It was hard to imagine being all good. I smiled anyway. “Yeah, I hope.” I settled deeper into the bed. The painkillers were really kicking in now and I was still so fucking tired. “Am I supposed to stay here?” I asked.

“No, I’m going to take you home,” Annabelle said.

Home. I knew she meant her house, but the way she said it implied that it was my home too. That I belonged there with her. It was nice to hear and in my hazy, drugged-out state, I didn’t question it. 

“That sounds nice,” I mumbled. 

“Y'all are going to be safe?” Willow asked.

“We’ll watch her, don’t worry,” Darius said. 

“You better,” Willow said. I felt them rise from the bed. “I’m going back to my dorm then.”

“Sounds good. Serenity, get up,” Annabelle ordered.

I opened my eyes My limbs were heavy, but I was pretty sure I could get them to obey me. I threw the blankets off and stood up. My legs shook under me.

“Okay, that’s not working,” Annabelle said. She pressed herself against my side and I threw my arm over her shoulder. “Darius get on the other side.”

“This is overkill,” I said.

“It’s really not,” Darius said, replied, getting into position. 

Getting out of the shop was harder than I thought it’d be. Every step I took jostled my insides and reminded me of how sore and bruised I was. If Annabelle and Darius weren’t dragging me forward, I doubt I would’ve made it. I hated they were right that I needed help. It was embarrassing, but I was out of it enough that it didn’t bother me too much.

My breath hitched when we got outside I saw the state of downtown. Every building in sight was vandalized. Almost every window had been shattered and more than a few doors had been smashed in. Glass, bricks, and debris littered the street. A group of construction workers was starting to pick up the mess and were making decent progress, but it was going to be a long time until downtown looked normal again. A few of them stopped working and stared at us when we exited the shop, but none of them said anything.

“Looks like a bomb went off,” I mumbled. “That’s bad.”

“You think?” Annabelle said.

A crow cawed three times from the roof across from us. Two more crows landed next to it, and together they called another three times. It was an unmistakable pattern. 

“Please tell me that doesn’t mean Joseph is here,” Annabelle said.

“No, that’s Madame Grace,” Willow said, stepping out of the shop behind us.

“What? Where?” Darius asked.

“I don’t know. She’s close though. Do you want to wait?”

“Yes. I want to talk to her,” I said. “I did something to myself when I passed out. Feels like I tore my insides apart. I want to ask her about it.”

“You fucking _what?_ You didn't think to mention that when I asked you if you were still in pain? What the fuck were you thinking?” Annabelle hissed.

“Dunno,” I shrugged

Annabelle clicked her tongue before she and Darius started moving again and deposited me in the back of Annabelle’s car. I was about to complain, but then Darius started his car and rolled down the window for me. I relaxed in my seat.

It felt like an hour passed before I saw Madame Grace. She leaned heavily on her cane and was walking with what seemed like a limp. It made me feel guilty. Part of that way my fault.

“She’s okay,” I said, more for myself than anyone else.

“I don’t know if I’d used that word to describe her, but she is alive,” Darius replied.

I decided that watching Madame Grace walk over to us was ten times worse than waiting for her to show up, She was so slow and it didn’t seem like she was trying to make haste in the slightest. When she was finally within speaking range, I was crawling with anticipation. Before I could say anything though, her sharp eyes found mine and she frowned. 

“You were making deals on my behalf,” she said.

“I- what?” I asked.

“You told Isiah that I wouldn’t interfere with his plans and that I'd leave once Maribelle and Waylon were dead.”

Oh, I did remember saying that, but it wasn’t like Isiah gave me room to argue. I wanted to explain as much, but instead, all that came out was, “I had to.”

She sighed. “Did you?”

“He was going to kill me. He-” I squeezed my eyes shut. The warm feeling of the painkillers wasn’t so great now. Not when I had to fight through both the fog of them and the haziness of my memories to even speak. “He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I had to do it. I told him you wouldn’t be okay with it, but he didn’t care.”

“You seemed like you were on good terms with him. He spoke fondly of you,” Madame Grace said.

She wasn’t happy about that. Everything in her tone and body language screamed that, but there was also that same sixth sense I’d had with Annabelle and Darius that made me sure I wasn’t making a mistake. It was faint for her, but it was still very much there.

“We’re similar,” I said.

“Apparently. What did you two discuss? I’d like to know. I don’t think that you two sharing one trait was enough to make him speak as fondly about you as he did.”

I knew the answer to that. The memories were there, even if I had to work to get to them. “Give me a second.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Madame Grace asked. She looked around at Willow, Annabelle, and Darius. 

“She’s high. Painkillers,” Darius answered. “And she just woke up.” 

Madame Grace clicked her tongue in disapproval. “Those will barely help. Most of her pain isn’t physical.”

“I know,” I said.

Madame Grace reached through the window and put the back of her hand on my head like she was feeling for a fever. I felt her presence probe into me, then poke around at the edges of the void in my soul. Her expression darkened further. “You’re incredibly fragile right now. You took in too much magic for too long. You could’ve died.”

“Am I going to get better?” I asked.

She pulled her hand away. “I hope so”

“Hope?” Anabelle said. “You fucking hope?”

“When someone breaks a bone badly, we hope it heals properly. The principle is the same here, but unlike a broken bone, there is no cast I can give you. This is more like a bruise. All you can do is rest and not do magic. If you do that, you should get better.”

I nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good, now please, tell me what you and Isiah discussed.”

“His story. How he became a witch. What he did to Maribelle and Waylon,” I listed.

“That’s it? What’s his story?”

“He overhead Maribelle and Waylon discussing magic and taught himself it by listening to them. They found out he was doing it and tried to kill him. He attacked them and tore their faces to shreds,” I said. 

Madame Grace nodded. “Okay, we’ll discuss this in more detail later. For now, there is one more thing. Maribelle and Waylon claimed you sided with Isiah and burned down the asylum, instead of distracting Isiah so they could kill him. Isiah said the same. Is that what you did?”

No point in lying. She already knew. “Yes.”

“What? You could’ve killed Isiah and you didn't?” Annabelle asked. “Please tell me you aren’t that fucking stupid. I don’t believe it.”

“I couldn’t trust Maribelle and Waylon,” I replied. “Isiah promised not to hurt me and made good on it the whole time we were in the asylum. Maribelle and Waylon called me it and told me I belonged in their asylum. They tortured him. I wasn’t going to help them.”

“If Isiah wasn’t going to hurt you, then why the fuck are you almost dead?” Annabelle asked.

I shrugged helplessly. “Bad luck?”

“Annabelle, she’s about to pass out, we’ll leave it for later,” Darius said.

“Before you three go, give me your jewelry. I’ll replace it. It will make the healing process easier, especially for you, Serenity.”

I’d never been more eager to listen. Taking it all off was a slow process until Annabelle stepped forward and took it all off. She paused when she got to the brass bracelet around my wrist and tapped it. “Do we need these still?” she asked. “Seems like we’d want less attention, not more.”

“All of the reasons you accepted them in the first place still apply,” Madame Grace. “Perhaps even more. I’d keep them.”

“They’re useful,” Willow said. “It makes the crows like me.”

“Attracting attention makes people feel more strongly about us, which makes us gather emotion and magic quicker anyway,” Willow said. “They’d be good if only for that. I’m keeping it.”

Annabelle muttered something under her breath, but she didn’t argue anymore. She pulled away from me, then handed off my jewelry to Madame Grace’s before she started on her own. Darius followed. I shut my eyes again and let the world float away. I didn’t even open them when someone started to slide new bracelets and necklaces onto me.

“Remember Serenity, no magic,” Madame Grace said.

“Mhm,” I mumbled. 

_

When I woke up the second time, I was in a lot less pain. The painkillers had worn off, but the new jewelry picked up the slack. Being sandwiched between Darius and Annabelle helped as well. So long as I didn’t try to poke too hard at their emotions, and just enjoyed their warmth, I was fine. 

I sat up and looked down at Darius. He was looking up at me through half-lidded eyes. “You need to shower.”

“I haven’t gotten the chance.”

“Well, you’ll have it now,” he replied. He reached over me and shook Annabelle gently. “Shower time. Get up. We’ve slept for long enough,” he said.

“I’m awake, but I don’t know why I’d need to be for Serenity to shower,” Annabelle replied. 

Darius grinned. “She’s injured. We have to help her. Your shower is big enough.”

“That’s- I can shower perfectly fine myself,” I said. I could feel a blush starting to creep onto my face.

“What? You don’t want to shower with me? Am I not good enough for you?” Darius asked. 

“No. It’s not that. It’s- “ I stopped. What was I doing? He was teasing me. “Fuck you. I’m fine.”

“She is back,” Darius cried out. He sat up and kissed my cheek. “Glad to see it.”

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach and I looked away. This was nice. Way nicer than I deserved considering how badly I fucked up last night. “If you want to shower with me, we’re going to have to do it in the dark.”

“You’re still on that?” Annabelle groaned. “We’ve already fucked. That’s a step above seeing you naked.”

“You didn’t want to come to begin with,” I shot back.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “I changed my mind. I want to see you naked.”

“You don’t. I’m not that much to look at.”

“I want to judge that,” she replied.

“Well, you’re not going to do that. Not today. I’m so sorry,” I deadpanned.

Annabelle slid a finger under my chin and made me face her. I let her do it. “I’m going to kiss you now,” she said.

“Oh.”

She swung herself into my lap so she was straddling me, put a hand on my cheek, and did just that. I expected it to be a quick peck, but her lips lingered on mine. It wasn’t anything like the way she usually kissed. There was no intent to claim or dominate. It was comforting. Nice, like she was doing it just for me.

It made my heart skip a beat in a good way.

When we broke apart, she looked at me through darkened, narrowed eyes. “You’re too self-conscious,” she said.

“She’s right,” Darius said. He slithered up behind me and draped his arms around my waist. “You’re perfectly pretty.”

“I didn’t say anything about being ugly,” I replied.

“You act like you are though,” Darius said.

“Weren’t we going to shower?” I asked, reaching for an excuse. I did not want to have this conversation.

“I want a kiss too first,” Darius pouted.

“You’re so fucking needy,” Annabelle said with a roll of her eyes.

“Said that pot to the kettle,” Darius replied. “Kiss me, Serenity? Please.”

I dipped my head back and kissed him. He was as gentle as Annabelle. It occurred to me then that both of them were handling me like fine china. I pulled away and glared at him.

“I’m not going to break,” I said.

“Well, we can’t be sure of that. Madame grace said you were ‘fragile’ he teased.”

“I’m showering. Annabelle, get off,” I ordered.

“Only you would be annoyed that we want to give you attention,” she said. 

“You’re suffocating.”

“I’m pretty sure you like it when we’re suffocating,” Annabelle said. She got out of my lap and stood up. “Am I wrong?”

I blushed and looked down at the bed. “We’re not doing this. I’m showering.”

“You keep saying that, but you’re not making an effort to.”

I hit his arm, then stumbled out of bed My legs were still a bit shaky, but it was more in my head than something wrong with my body. I marched out of the room and into Annabelle’s bathroom. The two of them followed a half step behind as if I was going to faint at any moment. 

“Sit,” Darius said, pointing at the closed toilet. “Before we can’t see shit, I want to check your bandages.”

I did. Darius crouched in front of me and took off my bandages. When they were all off, I took a fresh look at my hands and arms. They looked better than they had in the asylum, but not by much. Angry cuts, big and small, marred the skin, along with a host of small dark bruises.

“How am I going to hide this?” I asked. “Everyone is going to notice. I’m fucked.”

“Most of these will heal quick,” Darius said.

“What about in the meantime?”

“I can give you gloves,” Annabelle said.

“Gloves in summer?”

Darius stood up. “Yeah, we could dress you like you’re from the 19th century. Don’t you still have that dress Madame Grace gave you?”

“You’re not dressing me like Maribelle,” I said.

“I’m not putting you in a hoopskirt, they’d just be gloves,” Annabelle said. “It’s either that or walk around with your arms covered in cuts.”

I looked back down at my arms. “I’ll think of something.”

“I wanted to ask you something,” Darius said. “You said earlier that Isiah fucked up their faces, but when we got there, Maribelle had a veil on and Waylon had a top hat that covered everything.”

“Did you see Isiah?”

“No, he’s always hiding in the fucking shadows like he’s a ninja. I’m guessing you saw them?” Darius asked.

“Yeah, Isiah is…not great. He messed himself up bad,” I said.

“Hold that thought,” Darius said, then flicked off the lights. I heard him reach over me, then start the shower. “Now tell us.”

“Isiah tried to fix his body, but he didn’t do it right. He looks like- Hey!” I squeaked, swatting at Annabelle’s hand. It had dipped under my shirt and I could feel her trying to take it off. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Are you going to shower with your fucking clothes on?” Annabelle asked. 

“I can undress myself. I’m not a baby.”

“Holy shit, just let me do this. You ran off and almost died. Just let me,” Annabelle almost whined, not that she’d ever admit to it.

I sighed. “Fine.”

Annabelle didn’t say anything, but I could feel her smugness in the air anyway. She took her sweet time taking off my clothes. It was nothing like the raw efficiency Darius had when he undid my bandages. I would’ve objected if the feel of her hands running over my skin didn’t leave fire in its wake. I was never happier than Annabelle couldn’t see the blush on my face.

Once I was naked, Annabelle helped me stand up, then tugged me into the shower. It was big, but it was still tight with the three of us in there together. I was pressed up against Darius and Annabelle and the last thing on my mind was getting clean. 

“If you trip and die in here, I’m going to write it on your grace. So try not to do that,” Darius said. “Also, please continue to describe the terrible trio. I’m still interested.”

“Never say that again. It’s so stupid,” Annabelle said.

“It’s ironic.”

“That’s not what irony is! What are you even talking about?”

“What do you want to know about them?” I asked.

“What they look like.”

I nodded. “Okay, like I was saying, Isiah tried to change his body, and he didn’t do it right. I don’t even know how to describe it. He’s all skin and bones and he doesn’t have any hair. His kin is kind of gray and ashy, and his proportions are off. I asked him why he couldn’t fix himself, and he said he can’t stop seeing his body like a monster’s and that’s…I don’t know. 

“Heavy?” Darius suggested.

“That works. I guess.”

“What about Maribelle and Waylon?” Annabelle asked. I heard her squirt shampoo out of the bottle, then tugged me back a few inches so my head was out of the spray. She started to massage the shampoo into my hair. I could tell it was the same kind she used. It had the same citrusy scent. I was surprised she was using it on me, considering how expensive it was, but I wasn’t going to say anything about it. Her hands in my hair felt nice and if washing my hair made her happy, then I’d let her do it. 

“They’re normal, but Isiah clawed their faces apart. Only their mouths or eyes are visible. Everything else is a clawed up red mass, like they put their face on a sander.”

“Explains the veil and the hat,” Darius remarked.

“Yeah. Isiah…he didn’t deserve it. They tortured him. I don’t think he’s a bad person at heart.”

Annabelle nudged my back under the spray and washed the shampoo from my hair. “Do you think you can make him stop?” Annabelle asked. She sounded curious. There was no accusation hidden in her words.

“No. He won't. He said that after he destroys Hope, he’s going to move on to the next town and do the same thing until there are no rotten towns left. He-” I shut my eyes. I could still see the bodies of the two guards in the asylum, dead just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “He killed the guards at the asylum. I saw their bodies.”

“So that’s what those were,” Darius said.

“What?”

“While you were asleep, I checked on the news. You won’t be surprised to learn that the arson of the asylum is a pretty big deal, especially considering the bodies they found there. The riot has got a lot of attention too. No one died, but a lot of people got hurt. People are asking questions.” 

“They’re becoming afraid,” Annabelle said. She pulled me out of the spray again, then started to rub something new into my hair. I assumed it was her conditioner judging by the scent.

“Guess Isiah is getting what he wants,” I said.

“I bet he’s going to go for the university next. It’s the most iconic thing here,” Darius said.

“No. He’s not. I think I know where he will though,” I said.

“How do you know that?” Annabelle asked.

“He asked me how I got my black eye, and when I told him, he promised he’d take revenge on the police for me. I told him not to, but he didn’t listen. That’s my bet.”

“He promised to take vengeance on your behalf? Damn, my man is making moves. I think he might have a crush,” Darius said. I felt a pair of hands, broad and strong, drop down to my hips and squeeze, and then Darius was right in front of me. I had nowhere to go with Annabelle behind me with her hands still in my hair. “Did you tell him I have dibs?”

“Are you not worried about that?” I asked. My voice was high and breathy. It didn’t sound like I was serious at all.

“Honestly? Not really. The police here are fucking assholes.”

“I agree. Of all the places for him to point himself, that’s one of the better ones,” Annabelle said.

“He’s going to kill them,” I argued. “We can’t let him.”

“We might have to. You’re not exactly in a state to fight right now,” Darius replied.

“We’ll tell Madame Grace and the others. He can’t keep rampaging through Hope. If we let him take out the police, people are going to be more scared,” Annabelle said. 

“Alright.”

“You’re not doing anything though,” she continued. “Darius is right, you’re not fighting anyone.”

“I’m not made of glass.” 

“You’re not made of lead either. Just fucking relax for once,” Annabelle ordered. Her hands slipped out of my hair and she draped them around my hips over Darius’s hands.

“How am I supposed to relax with you two all over me?” I asked, squirming in their arms. The water was warm, but not nearly warm enough to explain how hot I felt. 

“There are a lot of ways to unwind,” Darius purred. His lips brushed over my own. “Do you want to try my favorite way?”

I kissed him. He didn’t seem surprised in the slightest. Annabelle must’ve heard, because then her lips fixed themselves to my neck, kissing and sucking. Then she bit and I saw stars. The noise I made was too humiliating to think about.

“I’m not slipping and dying in here. We’re moving,” Annabelle declared. “Dry up and follow me.”

Darius pulled away. I could see his smile in my mind's eye, even though all that was in front of me was darkness. “As you wish. Any objections?”

I had none.


	22. Must Converge - 3.3

Campus was a lot more ruined than the emails made it sound.

It wasn’t as bad as downtown, but more than a few windows and streetlights had been shattered. The huge pots along a few of the campus’s walkways had been tipped over and cracked against the concrete, spilling dirt all over, and someone had crudely spray painted big bright red dicks on a few buildings.

Almost everywhere you looked, there were people in bright yellow vests scrubbing spray paint or picking up glass shards that glittered in the grass. I suspected that the minute the campus looked normal again, they’d be gone, rather than sticking around to repair all the stuff in GCU that was broke, but less visible. Not that I could blame them for that. President Lee and GCU’s board were cheap fucks and cared more about the school’s appearance than its functionality.

I’d hoped that the mess on campus and the talk of the riot would take attention away from me, but I had no such luck. Wherever I walked, people stared, their faces confused but curious. I didn’t know if it was because I was limping around like a lame dog, if they’d seen me at the riot, or because they saw the row of tacky, dark hickeys Annabelle had left high on my neck. I’d tried to straighten up a few times, but all the emotion in the air aggravated the bruise on my soul and brought my slouch back. I wished I could’ve ignored it. I didn’t need any sixth sense to tell that people were terrified and feeling like shit, but apparently magic wasn’t something you could turn on and off.

At least I wasn’t the only one who looked off. There were plenty of other people who looked like me: hunched over, tired, and bristling like a wet cat. Just like me, dozens of pairs of curious eyes followed them around. People thought they’d been at the riot too. I was sure that all of our names were being swapped around and traded among the rumor mill like currency. Even I couldn’t avoid hearing names whispered when someone walked by.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, but I didn’t bother checking to see who it was. My mom had been trying to call me since this morning, and she wasn’t satisfied with a text telling her I was okay. She wanted to talk to me and at this point, any conversation with her was going to devolve into a screaming match in seconds. I’d been ignoring her for too long and had gotten way too much attention on myself for anything else to be the case.

However, talking to her, no matter how miserable the conversation was going to be, was inevitable. I still had some of my things at her house, things that I wasn’t keen on moving to Annabelle’s because as much as I hated to admit it, she was my backup plan. Living with Annabelle was precarious, no matter how nice it seemed. All it would take was one fight with Annabelle, or for her parents to decide their generosity had reached its limits, and I’d be homeless.

That thought had been in the back of my head since I’d been arrested. I knew logically that I was only making things worse for myself by waiting, but the idea of willingly talking to her and letting her rant at me for however long she wanted filled me with a heavy dread that made my chest tight and the bruise on my soul flare with pain. Our conversation was inevitable though. I had to do it.

Fuck.

My last class ended and I dragged myself to the same garden Elise had taken me to in what felt like an eternity ago. The sunlight filtered down and filled the garden with a warm yellow glow. The hummingbirds and bees were busy at work siphoning nectar from the flowers. It was the prettiest, most pristine spot on campus, and I was going to ruin it for myself by taking a call from my mom there.

It wasn’t as if I had a lot of choice in the matter. It was one of the only private places on campus, where I didn’t have to fear prying ears or gossips eager to share another story about me to the masses. I didn’t have the luxury of waiting until I was back at Annabelle’s house to take it either, since I was expected to show up at Madame Grace’s shop in an hour along with everyone else. I could’ve waited for us to be done there and back at Annabelle’s to call, but if I waited that long, I would never do it. I was going to be tired from Madame Grace’s lesson and too worried about Isiah, Maribelle, and Waylon to add to that stress by calling my mom.

It was now or never.

My phone started to ring again. I answered. “Hello?”

“Matthew Jay Holt, what the hell have you been up to?” my mom hissed. “You’ve been ignoring me for weeks. Your own mother! How dare you!”

“I texted you.”

“Texted me? Do you think that’s enough? If I’m calling you, I expect you to answer. I’m your mother. You owe me that. You owe me your entire life. I can’t even believe you’d treat your own mother like this! It’s shameful. You-”

And she was off. I watched a hummingbird with a bright red throat and a green back hover over a flower and drink from it. Its wings were a blur in the air. It was so delicate and small. If anything hit it, I couldn’t imagine it surviving. I felt the same right now. I wondered if that bothered the hummingbird, or if it was so used to its vulnerability that it didn’t even think about it anymore.

“-have any idea about what people are saying about you? About me? You’ve been ignoring me, but that doesn’t make the consequences of your actions go away. Do you even care about the effects you’re having on your own family? Do you Mathew? If you think for a second-”

Another hummingbird wearing the same colors suddenly flew at the one drinking from the flower in a vicious attack. The two birds darted around one another in a blur of motion, before the original was driven off by their rival. The new hummingbird claimed its spot at the flower the first had been drinking from and took a sip itself.

“-don’t know how hard that was to hear. The whole congregation, Matthew. Bishop will barely talk to me anymore. Even he is saying-”

Bishop’s named jolted me back to awareness. “What? What is Bishop saying?”

“Are you even listening to me?” my mom demanded.

“I’m listening, I just didn’t catch that last part,” I lied. “Tell me about Bishop.”

My mom laughed. It was a short, nasty noise. “That’s the whole problem! I don’t know! He won’t talk to me anymore. I have to get this all second hand. You have no idea what it’s like to have so many people talking about you behind your back and treating you like your a leper for things you haven’t even done!”

“Sounds hard,” I said dryly.

“Allegedly, he’s been saying that I’ve raised a monster. He’s accused you of concerting with Satan and me of letting you do it! Everyone thinks I’m evil, all because of you! I’ve told them over and over that, I tried to raise a good son, that it isn’t my fault you are how you are, but no one will listen to me!”

Good. Bishop wasn’t saying I attacked him. He was calling me a witch in a roundabout way sure, but hopefully, no one was going to take that literally. I was safe.

“Well if it’s not your fault, who’s is it?” I asked.

“Don’t you fucking dare take that tone with me! Don’t act as if this is my-”

I went back to tuning her out and watching the hummingbirds. I hoped that the rumors Bishop was sewing about me would stay limited to the church, but I knew that was a pipe dream. Sooner or later, his accusations would make it into the already massive pool of rumors about Serenity Holt. At least his were crazier than usual.

My mom ranted for a good ten minutes and was showing no signs of stopping. She'd run through the typical gamut of her complaints about me and was starting to repeat things she’d already said with increasing ferocity. I was getting impatient.

“Are you done yet?” I asked, cutting her off.

“No, I’m not done. Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard that you’ve been arrested, that you’ve done something unspeakable to Bishop to make him hate me, and that you were involved with a riot. A riot Matthew. People are saying they saw you there. That you were egging it on. So I’m going to ask you again, what the hell are you doing!”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Really? You want to lie to me.”

It was pointless to entertain her, but I couldn’t help myself. “What would I have to do to make you believe that I haven’t done anything wrong?” I asked.

“I can’t trust a word you said. Your actions speak louder than your words, Matthew. You’re wallowing in sin like a pig!”

“So nothing then?”

“You’re damn right there is nothing!” she screeched. “I wasn’t going to do this before, I was trying to be a good mother, trying to take care of my only son, but you won’t listen. I don’t know where you’re living now, but I can’t care anymore. You’re hurting me and your father too much. You’re ruining us and I won’t allow it. I don’t want to see you back at my house ever again. You’re no longer welcome.”

The words didn’t hit me like they should’ve. I’d thought I’d be mad the day I heard them, that I’d scream at my mom and yell at her for all the things she’d done wrong. Right now though, I was just numb. The words registered like someone talking about the temperature.

“I have stuff there,” I replied.

“Get it then. You have until Sunday or I’m throwing it out. After that, I don’t want to see you again. Not until your shape up and stop being a sinner.”

That was my backup plan up in smoke, but it also came along with my mom losing the last bit of leverage she had over me. She was still talking, saying something about atoning for my sins and accepting Christ into my life, but I ignored her. There was no reason to continue this conversation.

“Okay,” I said.

“What do you mean-”

I hung up. She called back immediately, but I ignored it, then blocked her. Or no. That wasn’t quite right. It was more like I watch myself do it. My fingers went through the motions of their own accord. I would’ve floated off into that distant place if it wasn’t for the grounding, sharp pain the bruise on my soul was sending through me. I clutched at my bracelets and necklaces, then tilted my head back to stare at the sky.

Huge, puffy white clouds drifted through the air on a pleasant, light breeze. The temperature outside was perfect and the sun was shining brightly. It was the nicest day Hope had had in years and I was spending it wallowing in my self-loathing and pity in the nicest spot on campus.

Pathetic.

I checked the time, then got off the bench and started to limp to Madame Grace’s shop. The destroyed downtown would reflect my mood much better than the garden. The looks I got as I made my way there didn’t both me. Who cared that there was no reason to be downtown other than to marvel in the destruction? I was already saddled with rumors. One more wasn’t going to kill me.

When Madame Grace’s shop popped into view, tucked away like always, I saw someone standing in front of it with a camera and their brown hair tied back into a messy ponytail. I stopped walking, but before I could try and find cover, Mary turned, waved at me, and started to walk towards me. I considered making a break for it, but that would only make me look guilty, so I settled for shoving my hands into my pocket and trying to look as miserable as I felt.

“I’m glad you’re alright, it’s good to see you,” she said, stopping a few feet from me. “What brings you down here. Everything is kind of smashed.”

She made it sound like a question, but I knew she knew what my answer would be. She had the same look in her eyes as the first time we met. I could feel her curiosity heavy in the air around us. It was a stark contrast to the emotions of anger and destruction that still lingered downtown. A stab of pain pulsed out from that place inside of me, but I forced myself to not flinch.  
“I’m just taking a walk, clearing my head,” I said.

“Bad day?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry to hear that. If it makes you feel better, my article about what happened to you is done. I’m waiting for the editors to review it. It should be out really soon.” Her eyes flicked down, taking in the bruises running up my arms. I regretted not taking Annabelle up on her offer to give me gloves. “Where did you get those?” she asked.

I bared my neck and pointed at the bruises Annabelle had left. “A friend,” I lied.

“A friend?”

“Mhm.”

She frowned and I got the urge to try and become one with the asphalt. I was doing such a shit job at selling my lies. Everything I said was coming out so blank and lifeless like I was a robot delivering prerecorded responses. I wished I had the emotion and energy to sell myself better. I wished I was talking instead of watching myself do it.

“…right then. I’m not gonna ask,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Taking some pictures for the paper,” she replied. “I noticed something weird though. Every other shop and restaurant got at least a bit damaged, but Madame Grace’s shop was totally fine.”

“Weird.”

She looked dead at my necklaces. I didn’t try and cover them. “Those are new necklaces, aren’t they? What happened to the old ones?”

“Lost them.”

“That sucks,” she said.

This conversation could not be going any worse. I needed a way out, but Mary wasn’t giving me any. I was so tempted to warn her that if she kept poking around Madame Grace, she might catch the attention of Joseph or Isiah and end up like one of the dead people she wrote about, but I was almost positive she’d take that as encouragement. For lack of anything else to do, I decided to let the air between us turn still and awkward and for Mary to get the hint that I wasn’t in the mood to talk.

If she got the hint, she ignored it. “So anyway, I knocked on Madame Grace’s door and asked what she did, just out of curiosity, and she slammed the door in my face and told me to not come around again. She’s gotta be hiding something.”

“Yeah.”

She was waiting for me to say more, but I kept my mouth shut. Mary was too smart and as usual, shutting the fuck up was the best strategy.

“You’re going to her shop, aren’t you?” Mary asked. “That’s why you’re here.”

If I wasn’t so numb, I might’ve given something away, but as I was now I managed to keep a straight face. “No, I’m going for a walk,” I lied.

“Here? In the middle of all this?” she asked, gesturing around us. “I don’t buy it.”

“Fine. I’m not going for a walk. I’m here because I’m looking for somewhere I can squat because my parents kicked me out of their house and I don’t know how long I can couch surf.”

Mary blinked. She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. I could feel her emotions swap from that raw, all-consuming curiosity, to something much more muted.

“That’s…I’m sorry,” Mary said. “That’s shitty of them.”

“Yeah. I can’t afford to see a psychic right now.”

She glanced back down at my jewelry but didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t know if she believed me completely, but she didn’t have to. I just needed her to go away.

“If you need a place to stay or food or anything like that, you can stop by my apartment. My roommate won’t care. I- you don’t have to sleep on the street. That’s fucked up.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Mary cleared her throat. “Alright. You have my number. I’ll let you know as soon as the article comes out. It was nice to see you again.”

“You too.”

We walked past one another, me further downtown, and Mary towards campus. I didn’t look back at her, even though I could feel her eyes on me. I hoped she’d go back to campus and not linger. If she saw any of the others coming, it was going to pique her suspicions again. I rubbed at my temples. Why couldn’t things be easy for once?

I walked until I was in the south part of downtown then sat on a curb and looked at the old buildings around me. Most of them were in bad enough shape that they could’ve been a part of the riot. Maybe in their time they had. I thought about making good on the lie I told Mary, but couldn’t motivate myself enough to get up and really look.

A crow landed on the roof of the building right across from me, then looked right at me. Something dangled down from its neck, but I couldn’t tell what. I took my hand out of my pocket and held out my arm, then whistled sharply. The crow eyed me for a few seconds, then glided down from the roof and landed in the middle of the street a few feet away from me.

“You’re safe,” I said. “I’m Serenity, Willow’s friend. I guess you’re keeping an eye on me?”

The crow ruffled its feathers, then snapped out its wings and flew up and perched on my arm. The thing around its neck was the simple chain bracelet I’d given Willow when they asked for it back when they first introduced us to their crows. I lifted a finger and scratched under the crow's chin. It raised it for me and ruffled its wings again. I’d never thought of crows as cute before, but this one was. I’d have to ask Willow what its name was.

I spent the next ten minutes petting the crow before it got bored and took off again, flying away to a new perch a few buildings down. I waved, then stood up. Mary was probably gone by now, but I was going to take the back entrance to Madame Grace’s shop anyway, just to be safe.

The crow followed me as I walked down the street, hopping from building to building behind me. It made me feel safe. I wondered how long it’d been doing it, or if this was a new development. Willow had said they were going to have crows tail us, but this is the first time I’d noticed. More things to ask when I saw them later.

Madame Grace’s back door was locked when I got to it, but a few seconds after I knocked, Madame Grace opened the door. She was wearing a massive black dress that pooled on the floor like spilled oil. She smiled at me, then stepped aside. “I thought you were Willow. They’re usually the first here,” she said.

“Guess you have to deal with me,” I said, as I stepped inside. As soon as I was through the door, I felt safer. There was a comforting presence to Madame Grace’s shop, one I’d never really noticed before. Was that new too?

“What’s bothering you? You’re restless,” Madame Grace said.

“Had a fight with my parents, but it’s fine. That’s not what I wanted to talk about.” I pushed aside the curtain and walked out of her bedroom, then took a seat at her table.

“What do you want to talk about then?”

“How long is it going to take for me to feel better? I still hurt. Inside of me. It feels like it’s on my soul.”

Madame Grace took a seat across from me. “It’s hard to say.”

“I’m going to get better though, right? You said I would.”

“You should. If you were shattered beyond repair, we’d both know it. So long as you rest and don’t do any magic, you should recover.”

I started to bounce my leg under the table. “I’m trying to do that. I am, but I can feel magic or emotion or whatever you want to call it everywhere now. And when I focus on it, it hurts.”

She tapped her fingers on the table, then laid her hand flat on the table. “Give me your hand.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Getting a better look at your injury. I didn’t get the opportunity the other day. You children were too intent on leaving and I was too tired. Allow me to now.”

I laid my hand flat on top of hers. She traced her thumb over the top of some of the cuts on the back of my hand and shook her head. Like before, her presence pushed its way inside of me and started to prod at my bruised soul. It didn’t hurt any worse than walking around normally did, but it was still one of the most disgusting and uncomfortable things I’d ever felt. I yanked my hand away like I’d been burned.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked.

“The same thing I’ve done to you before. You’re just aware of it now,” Madame Grace said.

I rubbed my arms. They were covered in goosebumps. “Yeah, I’ve fucking noticed.”

“When did it start?”

“I don’t know. I think after Isiah took me to the asylum.”

Madame Grace shook her head. “He was reckless. No wonder you feel so terrible.”

“He did it?”

“He played a role. He forced you to notice what you’ve suspected all along. You weren’t ready though. A slow adjustment to magic is better than an abrupt one.”

“So it wasn’t burning down the asylum that did this to me?”

“It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

I took a deep breath. Everything felt like it was too much right now. “Alright. Sure, but what’s the extent of the damage? That was the point of this right?”

Madame Grace folded up her hands together. “It’s severe, but as I said, you’ll heal.”

“In how long.”

“I don’t know.”

“Can’t you just fix it? You cured Darius of a disease that you shouldn’t have been able to. Why can’t you just fix me now?”

“Imagine yourself fixed for me,” Madame Grace said.

“What?”

“Go on. Imagine what that would be like. Tell me when you’ve done it.”

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the pain in my soul away. I reached for memories of weeks prior, where everything wasn’t one big overwhelming mess. It wasn’t hard to picture being normal again, but the pain sat in the back of my head. It was like my dysphoria. No matter how happy I was with how I looked or how good I felt, it was there lurking. I couldn’t imagine it gone.

“I can’t.”

“I can’t either, unfortunately.”

I opened my eyes and rubbed my face. “Then how did you cure Darius? What happened? How come you could imagine it for him?”

“I didn’t imagine it for him, he did the work for me. I told him I cured him, he believed me, and in that moment he convinced himself that he no longer had his disease. He imagined himself free of it so completely, that I didn’t have to imagine a thing at all. I just had to provide the power to make it real.”

“Seriously? That’s it?”

“I’ve told you before child, all magic is simply emotion and imagination. If you convince yourself it’s true and you have enough power, enough emotion to pour into that belief, then it becomes real. If neither you nor I can imagine you cured, you won’t be cured.

I put my arms on the table, then buried my head in them. “Great. Fantastic. Thank you so much for your help.”

“I did my best,” she said. “A friend of yours came by my shop earlier. They asked me questions about you.”

I looked up. “Mary?”

“That’s how she introduced herself. She claimed she was a reporter. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her either.” Madame Grace narrowed her eyes into that unstoppable piercing gaze. It reached inside of me and pressed against that painful place. “What have you been telling her.

“Nothing. I haven’t told her anything,” I replied. “Now stop looking at me like that. It hurts.”

Madame Grace blinked and her eyes stopped being so piercing. I sunk back into my chair.

“What is your relationship with her then?”

“My life doesn’t revolve around you. I have other problems. She’s helping with some of them.”

“Yes, of course. I apologize,” Madame Grace said, looking a bit embarrassed. “I’m cautious. I hope you understand.”

“It’s fine.”

“Would you like some sweet tea, Serenity?”

“Sure.”

She stepped behind her curtain and I put my head back in my arms. I heard the door swing open. I didn’t look up to see who it was.

“How are you, Serenity?” Willow asked.

“Awful.”

“I’m sorry,” Willow said, taking a seat beside me.

I sat back up and cleared the hair from my face. “It’s fine. Can you tell me what the name of the crow that follows me around is?”

“You saw her?” Willow asked. Their eyes shined with excitement.

“Yeah, she followed me here actually. Landed on my arm and everything. I think she likes me.”

Willow ran their hands through their hair and nodded. “Good. I’m glad. Her name is Felicity. She’s a good crow. She helped look for you Saturday night too. I’m glad she’s taken a liking to you. The other crows haven’t started to follow the others yet. Make sure you keep her safe.”

“I will. I promise.”

Madame Grace returned with three glasses of sweet tea, and the three of us sat and drank in silence. It was nice. The tea was good and I and the feeling like I was a spectator to my own body started to fade.

Elise came into the shop ten minutes later, followed by Annabelle and Darius. The two of them circled me like a pair of hungry sharks. Annabelle dragged her fingers over the back of my neck before she sat down next to me. Darius settled next to her and Elise took the final seat. Madame Grace smiled at all of us.

“I’m glad you’re all alive and safe,” she said. “As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, things have escalated. Isiah has made his first big move, and we’ll be attending Maribelle and Waylon’s dinner party soon. We need a plan of action. I attempted to resolve my conflict with Isiah when I saw him, but he’s too intent on his goal of destroying Hope to relent. Maribelle and Waylon were no more reasonable. They want me gone, whether that means I die or am driven out of Hope is no matter to them. Neither party can be truly negotiated with.

“We knew all this,” Annabelle said. “Did you get anything useful out of talking to them? Their plans? Focuses?”

“Serenity told Isiah that we would not interfere with his plans with the implication that we won’t interfere with his. I plan to honor that agreement for now. Currently, we are focused on Maribelle and Waylon.”

“So we’re going to let Isiah do whatever he wants?” Elise asked. “If Joseph didn’t stop him, he would’ve rioted straight through Hope. Whatever he’s going to do next is going to be worse. We can’t interfere when we don’t even know what he’s going to be doing.”

Darius's eyes flicked to mine in a silent question. I sighed. It was going to have to come out eventually. I nodded.

“He’s going to be aiming for the police,” Darius said. “He told Serenity that was his next target. So we kind of know.”

“When did he say that?” Willow asked.

I quickly recounted the conversation Isiah and I had at the asylum, giving only the highlights of his past and his promise to me. Everyone listened intently. I felt exhausted when I finished.

“That settles that then, I was going to ask for more detail on what y'all talked about,” Madame Grace said. “Nonetheless, we need to focus on Maribelle and Waylon. If the opportunity comes to stop Isiah, we will, especially since we know where he might be going next.”

“How do you suggest we do that?” Darius asked. “I only saw the guy for a few minutes, but I don’t think I’m winning a fight against him. I don’t think any of us are. He’ll fucking kill us. Unless you’re there, we’re shit out of luck.”

“You’re not as helpless as you think you are. You’re learning quickly. All of you.”

“We’re learning, but you know we can’t beat him right now,” Elise said. “If you want to stop him, we need a better plan.”

“What about Maribelle and Waylon? Won’t they stop him?” Willow asked.

“They have an interest in doing so, but I don’t want to rely on them,” Madame Grace said.

“Then you have to come up with an actual plan,” I said.

“I’ll do what I can,” Madame Grace said. “We can keep ourselves a step ahead Isiah too. If we know what he’s doing next, we can trade that information to Maribelle and Waylon. Gain their help and something else in return.”

“You said that they couldn't be negotiated with,” Willow said.

“I did, but I meant that in reference to their final goals. In the short term, there might be short term compromises we can make.”

“What about in the long term then. You said they can’t be negotiated with, so what are you going to do to them? Kill them?”

“Ideally, yes.”

I’d expected her to say it, but unlike the first time, the idea of murder floated, this time she seemed much more serious.

“Isiah too?” Darius asked.

“Yes.”

The idea of killing Isiah still left a bitter taste in my mouth too. I knew what he was doing was atrocious, that destroying an entire town and all the people in it wasn’t a fix, but what other fix was there? What else could he do? I got the frustration. I got the desire to destroy.

“So you have settled on a course of action,” Annabelle said.

“I did suggest it,” Madame Grace replied.

Darius shrugged. “I was okay with this from the start.”

Willow tugged at their hair. Their eyes were fixed to the wall a bit to the left of Madame Grace. “I don’t know if I am capable of killing someone,” they said.

“Yeah, I don’t know if I can just kill someone like that,” Elise said. “That’s- I don’t want to. I don’t think I can.”

“Every human can kill, believe me, but you won’t have to kill anyone. I will do the deed,” Madame Grace said.

“We’d still be accomplices to murder,” Elise said.

“Justified murder,” Darius said.

“That doesn’t make me feel better about it.”

“Let’s say we do manage it,” Annabelle said. “Just theoretically. When they’re dead, what the fuck is that going to solve? Maribelle and Waylon promised Serenity that they could stop the investigation against us if she cooperated. Joseph has talked to Bishop and Father John and the Catholics more than once. They might be scary, but they’re not scary enough to have every little part of this town pissing itself and running to obey. Other people like this status quo too. Even if they’re gone, the gears are going to keep turning.”

“The university will still be bad too,” Willow added. “And it causes a lot of problems in Hope too, doesn’t it? That’s what I’ve heard.”

“It does,” I said. “All the money goes there, and everywhere else gets fucked.”

“Exactly, so if killing them isn’t going to fix the problems here, why are we doing it?” Annabelle asked. She crossed her arms and gave Madame Grace a calculating look. “Is this all a power grab for you?”

Madame Grace shook her head. “No. It’s not. We all know Hope is better off under me than them. If I were to sit and do nothing, things would still be better. I will be an improvement.”

“So you won’t do anything if you win?” I asked. “You won’t change things to be better?”

“I will try, that was merely a hypothetical.”

“How the fuck do we know that?” Annabelle demanded. “You benefit from all the misery too, don’t you? You give people jewelry so you can collect power. You benefit from how things are too,” she accused.

Something changed about Madame Grace. I couldn’t figure out what, but she looked exhausted again like she had when she’d returned from the asylum. I could feel the walls she kept up being lower for a brief second. It made me realize just how in control Madame Grace was of her emotions at all times. It must’ve been exhausting.

“Of course I benefit, but I will benefit just as well if Hope was happier. People will always find new ways to be miserable themselves. I don’t have to assist them in that. Also, remember, happiness is an emotion too. I will make things better because I am happy to be Hope’s only witch instead of its destroyer or master. The only thing I can be sure of, the only thing I can truly promise, is that I will not purposefully try and keep Hope in misery and that children, will be an improvement.”

“We’re just settling for you then. You’re not making a good case for yourself,” Elise said.

“You will always settle for someone.”

“We can find something better than you,” Annabelle said.

Madame Grace gave a slight shrug. “You’re free to do what you’d like, so long as you don’t violate our agreement. I promise you, you will not find someone better than me.”

“We could kill you too,” Darius said.

Madame Grace’s eyes hardened. She sat up straighter. The temperature in the room plummeted. I shivered. Why the fuck did Darius have to say that? Of all the dumb, stupid things that could’ve come out of his mouth, this one took the cake.

“Is that a threat?” Madame Grace asked.

“No, I’m only floating the idea. Do you think Hope would be better with or without you?”

“It’s better with me here. Without me, someone new would come and replace me, someone who isn’t just interested in running a shop. That is all I want to do. It’s what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years. My ambitions haven’t changed.” Her eyes narrowed. “I hope yours haven’t either. There are consequences for violating our agreement.”

The threat hung heavy in the air. Annabelle’s face was pale and Elise made like Willow and was looking anywhere else but Madame Grace. Willow had a deep frown on their face, but it looked more like concentration than it did fear. Darius looked completely unaffected. He was either an incredible actor or didn’t care about Madame Grace killing him.

I couldn’t figure out which.

Darius rolled his eyes. “Alright, fine. Not like we have much of a choice. We can’t let Isiah or Maribelle and Waylon stick around,” Darius said. “So how are we going to kill them? Are we going to Maribelle, Waylon, and Joseph over dinner? Poison their wine?” Darius asked.

“I considered that, but I don’t think it will work. We will need to find another way.”

“We said we’d do errands, not suicide missions,” Annabelle objected. “Just so you know.”

“Yeah. I’m not going to stick out my neck like that. I don’t want to die over this. Unless you have a brilliant plan for how we’d pull it off, then I’m not helping,” Elise said.

“Well, that’s what we’re here to discuss isn’t it?” Madame Grace asked.

“We’re here for our magic lesson,” Willow said. “You promised you would give us one.”

“We can do both. I hope none of you are busy. We could be here for a while, especially if we are going to plan our strategy for the dinner.”

“Magic first,” Willow said.

“As you wish. I’ll do my best to make it quick.”

_

It wasn’t quick.

She might have tried to make it that way, but our lesson stretched on for hours. Madame Grace had moved on from explaining magic in words, to trying to teach everyone how to feel emotion in the air. I wished she wasn’t good at teaching. If she was bad, Darius, Annabelle, and Elise might’ve gotten frustrated, but as it was, they could understand enough of Madame Grace’s lessons to keep going.

It was pure torture.

She made everyone, including Willow— who already knew how to do what she was teaching— practice over and over again. I had to sit in my chair and watch, unwilling to do any more damage to myself than I already had.

Sitting there left me plenty of time to ruminate over how we might kill Maribelle and Waylon. Madame Grace had said we were going to revisit that problem, but as the lesson stretched on and on, it was obvious we weren’t. All the solutions I came up with had less to do with magic, and more to do with simple, violent force. We were never going to win a fight with magic involved. Maribelle and Waylon were one hundred years old and had more experience with magic than any of us could hope to gain in a lifetime. I was almost positive the best way to get rid of them was to just shoot or stab them. Madame Grace wouldn’t even be needed for the finishing blow then. Any of us could do it.

I could do it.

It was a dark thought to linger on, but I could easily imagine myself killing both of them. They’d deserve it. They were responsible for the missing people of Hope. They’d been kidnapping people from Hope for years and doing God only knows what to them, along with whatever other toxic systems they greased the wheels for. They were monsters. Killing them would’ve been a good thing. It would’ve felt good.

That thought made me feel queasy. I stood up. “I’m going to step outside.”

“You’re not going out there alone,” Annabelle said immediately. “Not after last time. No fucking way.”

“I’ll go with her,” Willow said.

“Can’t you just wait in here?” Annabelle asked.

“They’ll be fine. You’re being paranoid,” Darius replied.

“Don’t go,” Annabelle ordered.

I almost didn’t. It was hard to resist listening to Annabelle when her voice and eyes were so sharp. It would’ve been so easy to sit back down in my chair, but I forced myself to move to the door. “I’ll be fine,” I said, then stepped outside.

Willow followed me out a second later. I walked over to the curb and took a seat, then looked at the sky. The clouds had turned a deep purple with the coming night. The north star twinkled above us and a tiny sliver of the moon rose high into the air.

Willow sat down beside me, then put a hand on my knee. At once, I could feel their magic creeping its way inside of me and prodding around it. It didn’t go as deep as Madame Grace’s did and it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable. Given how sick I felt now though, it was enough to tie my stomach into knots.

“Stop,” I said.

Willow withdrew their hand, then brought it up and started toying with their hair. “You’re still hurt.”

“I know.”

They stopped playing with the hair, then shifted forward so their hand hovered an inch from my hair. “Can I touch your hair?” they asked.

“So long as you don’t try any magic, sure,” I replied.

They moved behind me, then started running their fingers through my hair. It was knotted mess, but Willow was careful not to try and untangle any of them.

“Why can’t you practice with us?” they asked.

“Madame Grace’s orders. I hurt myself setting the asylum on fire and apparently, Isiah sped up my learning process more than was safe.”

“I see.”

Willow went quiet and continued to run their hands through my hair. I sighed. It felt nice.

“My mom kicked me out of my house today,” I said, apropos of nothing.

“I thought you lived with Annabelle now?”

“I do, but I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do that. I could be homeless if something goes wrong.”

“You’re upset about it.”

“Yeah. I am. It fucking sucks. It’s not even that I don’t have somewhere to live it’s just-” I put my head in my hands and sighed. No one word would ever capture how I felt. Being rejected hurt. No matter how many times it happened. I was pissed at myself for being upset. “It’s disappointing,” I finished lamely.

“Why did she kick you out?”

“She did it because rumors were going around about me. Bishop is being vicious. Excluding her from the church. Talking about how she raised a hell child. If I didn’t choke him, none of this would’ve happened.”

“Probably,” Willow said nonchalantly.

I laughed. It wasn’t the sort of comfort Annabelle and Darius would give. Willow didn’t mince words or hide how they felt like Annabelle and Darius did. They just let me talk and listened.

“God, this sucks,” I said.

“There are crows around here,” Willow said. “Do you want me to call them? They might help.”

I dropped my hands and looked around. It was dark out and there wasn’t anyone on the street. “Sure. Go for it,” I said.

Willow moved back to sit beside me, then whistled sharply three times. A few seconds later, three crows flew down from where they’d been perched in the darkness and watching us. Two landed on their shoulders, while the third landed in front of me.

“Hi Felicity,” I said, holding out my hand.

Felicity scrutinized me for a second, then flew up and landed on my shoulder. I scratched under her chin, then looked at Willow. They were feeding their crows a bit of seed. They must’ve always kept some around now.

“Who are they?” I asked, pointing at the birds they were feeding.

“Huginn and Munnin,” Willow replied.

“They like you.”

“All the crows like me. They associate me with food and good feelings. I’ve been using magic to give them random little bursts of pleasure when they see me. It’s the most effective form of conditioning,” they explained. “Huginn and Munnin are simply the most trusting and kind of the crows I found. They have bonded with me.”

“I hope Felicity likes me.”

“She does. Here, feed her some seed,” Willow said, offering me some.

I took it and held it out to Felicity, who was more than happy to eat everything she was given. Having her perched on my shoulder made me feel a bit ridiculous. Other than having a black bird on my shoulder, I looked nothing like a witch. Me in my light pink shirt, messy hair, and jeans was nothing like what I imagined witch would be.

Willow though, was the spitting image of one. With their crows perched on their shoulders, their long black skirt, and flowy black top, they were everything I pictured a modern witch would look like. I wondered if I could convince them to put a witch's hat on, just for a picture.

“Are you dating Annabelle?” Willow asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“She touches you a lot. Darius does too. And you have bruises on your neck.”

I covered it and blushed. “Yeah, well Annabelle did that.”

“So you're dating her?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“Well, I’m sleeping with her. And Darius. Were all sleeping with one another. And I guess we're not technically dating. We’re not calling it that. We’re just…friends. Sort of.”

“It sounds like you’re dating.”

“We’re not though. Technically”

“So what are you doing?” Willow asked.

“That’s a good fucking question.” I looked over my shoulder, checking to make sure no one was looking out the window or near the door, then continued. “Honestly? I haven’t been thinking about it that much. I’ve been busy and I don’t- I don’t want to ruin anything. I like both of them. It’s nice to be around them and-”

“Are you happy?” Willow asked.

Was I happy? It wasn’t something I thought about a lot because whenever I did, I found that I didn’t usually like the answer I came up with. “I don’t know how to answer that,” I admitted.

“Do they make you happy?”

“Yeah. I guess they do,” I said. “Are you happy? About all of this?”

Willow hummed in thought. “I like magic and I think I’m okay with what has happened so far. I’m okay with killing Maribelle, Waylon, and Isiah. They hurt people. Lots of people and they won’t stop. Madame Grace is right, we have no other choice.”

“I guess,” I said. “But what about like, school? And the rest of what you do?”

Willow frowned. “This is what I do. I like it.”

“But what about your other hobbies and stuff? Other friends? Romance prospects?”

“Y'all are my friends, and this is my hobby,” they said. They pointed to Huginn. “The crows are too. I’ve never been able to get so close. I love them.”

“How are your parents?”

“Why do you want to know?” they returned.

I pulled my knees into my chest. “I don’t know, you’ve sat and listened to me bitch plenty.”

“You listen to me too,” Willow said.

“Yeah, but that’s about like, the crows. Not other stuff.”

“I like the crows,” Willow said. “But if you want you to tell me about my parents, I can. They’re not very interesting.”

“Tell me anyway. Just… fill the air,” I said.

And they did.


	23. Must Converge - 3.4

“This place looks like shit,” Darius said.

Annabelle, he, and I stood on the sidewalk in front of my parent’s house. I was tired from classes, and I really would’ve rather had gone back to Annabelle’s and slept than been here, but I needed my stuff, and I wasn’t going to have time to get this weekend. Not with Maribelle and Waylon’s dinner party, and all the preparations we still had to do.

It was Thursday, and we’d already met with Madame Grace three times for more lessons and strategy talks about how we were going to beat Maribelle, Waylon, and Isiah. The lessons were useful, the strategy talks were not. We were no closer to figuring out how to deal with them, and I secretly thought that Madame Grace’s big plan was to train us so we could stand up for more than a minute in a fight so we could distract them and she could kill Maribelle and Waylon out herself.

It might’ve been the worst plan she could’ve come up with.

None of us, sans Willow, were going to last ten seconds, let alone a minute, against them. The bruise on my soul was slowly starting to heal, and I was starting to be able to focus more on emotion and magic, but if I couldn’t do anything more than that without it hurting. Darius, Annabelle, and Elise were still busy developing the sixth sense Willow and I already had, and they weren’t pulling off any impressive magic either.

Luckily, they wouldn’t need any sixth sense to figure out how my parents felt today.

“Yeah, I know.” I said.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t have rented something for this? Is all your shit is going to fit in my car?” Darius asked.

“I don’t have that much stuff. It’ll all fit in the trunk and the back.”

“If you don’t have that much stuff, then why can’t you and Darius pack up while I talk to your parents?” Annabelle asked.

I rolled my eyes. “We’ve been over this. You’re not going to talk to them, you’re going to scream at them and start a fight.”

“They kicked you out. If I want to start a fight over that, I should be able to,” Annabelle said.

“It’s a waste of time. Stick to what I already told you. If you don’t stop and argue, we’ll be done quickly.”

Annabelle glared harder at my house. “No promises,” she said. “And if this is supposed to be quick, then why are we still fucking standing here? We’ve wasted ten minutes.”

It was a rhetorical question. Both of them already knew the answer. I’d been bouncing my and taking deep breaths ever since Annabelle said we were going to get my stuff today. The anxiety had been manageable until we’d gotten to the house and my attempts at relaxation started to falter. Even with Annabelle and Darius beside me and helping, I didn’t want to go in. I wished I could’ve done this at 3:00 AM and sneaked to get my stuff like I used to.

“We can go. I was just preparing myself,” I said.

Darius threw his arm over my shoulder and pulled me into his side. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe.”

The three of us marched to the front door. My heart pounded and sweat beaded down my face and back. My body getting ready to flood my veins with adrenaline wasn’t doing me any favors either. It felt like I was back in front of the doors of Coastal State Hospital, except with the sun suffocating me instead of darkness. It was September, but it may as well have been late July considering how brutal the heat was.

Annabelle tried to ring the doorbell, then scowled when it didn’t work. She pressed it rapidly another dozen times before she gave up. “Is all the shit here broken?” she asked.

“Your house is a rotting mansion,” I pointed out

“My house is fucking fine. It gets its repairs whenever it needs them.”

“The floor creaks everywhere and your pipes are old as fuck though, you gotta admit that,” Darius said.

“They work. If you have a problem with them, you can go shower at the dorms.”

Darius looked disgusted. “I’d have to share a bathroom then. I can’t do that.”

“Then I don’t want to hear it,” Annabelle said. She raised a fist and pounded on the door. “Hey! We’re here to get Serenity’s stuff!” she shouted. “Open up!”

I cringed. “Do you have to do it like that?”

“Yes.”

I heard footsteps behind the door, and then it opened, revealing my dad. He blinked at us, then sighed and ran a hand through his russet hair. I wondered why he hadn’t shaved it all of yet. His bald spot was only growing, and keeping what little hair he had left made his pudgy face and stocky build look even more awkward. He was dressed in his typical dirty tank-top and jeans. He must’ve just gotten back from work.

“Hello Matthew,” he said.

“Serenity,” Annabelle corrected.

“That’s not what I named my son,” my dad replied.

“Yeah, well it’s her fucking name,” Annabelle hissed.

“We’re here to get her stuff,” Darius said quickly. “We don’t want to fight.”

“Who are you?” my dad asked, giving Darius and Annabelle a once-over. “I know the blond, one, but I’ve never seen you before. Why are you wearing a suit?”

Darius extended his hand and gave his most charming smile. “Darius Williams. I’m Serenity’s friend.”

My dad didn’t take it, instead, he looked at me. “You know, if you drop the act, I could convince your mother to let you come back.”

“The act?” I asked, even though I already knew what he was about to say.

“The trans thing. What else would I be talking about?”

I sighed. “I’m not coming back. I don’t want to. I’m just getting my stuff.”

“You’d rather be homeless and ruin yourself. I get it. Whatever,” he said. “Can’t say I didn’t try. Go get your stuff.” He walked straight back through my house, then through the back door and walked to the back door of the house and let himself out onto the deck. He picked up his half-smoked cigarette from his ashtray, stuck in his mouth, then shouted, “Marie! Matthew is home!” before he shut the door. Watching him smoke made me crave a cigarette. Damn Darius for making me quit.

“What a lovely person,” Darius remarked.

“Matthew!” my mom shouted. She poked her head out of the kitchen to glare at my dad, before she turned her attention towards us. Her eyes widened when she saw Annabelle and Darius standing next to me. “What are you doing here, Annabelle?”

“I’m-”

“She’s helping me move out,” I said, linking my arm through hers.

My mom stepped out of the kitchen and stalked forward, her head held high. She looked ferocious. Her eyes burned with fury. I could feel her anger and frustration like plumes of steam in the air. I already hear the screaming match she was going to get in with Annabelle.

“Is that where you’ve been staying all this time? You’ve been letting him-”

“Her,” Darius corrected.

“-stay with you?” my mom continued. “Is that what this is?”

“We’re just getting my stuff,” I said.

“What? Not even going to talk to me about what you’ve done? You think you can walk in here and out like you used to?”

“Yeah, I do. That’s what I’m going now, actually.

My mom glared at me, then focused on Darius. “Who are you?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I already did introductions, but my name is Darius.”

“And what are you doing in my house?”

“Same thing Annabelle is. Helping Serenity move,” he explained.

“Let’s go. I’ll take you to my room,” I said.

“You’re not going anywhere,” my mom growled. “Not until we talk.”

“We’re talking now,” I replied, then headed towards me stair, dragging Darius and Annabelle with me. My mom followed behind and I knew then that she wasn’t going to make this easy. She was going to hover and bitch.

“What do you want to talk about?” Darius asked once we hit the top of the stairs. He broke away from me and leaned on the banister. “And I’d like to know your name too. Make an equal exchange and all.

“Marie Cynthia Holt,” my mom hissed.

“Nice to meet you, Maire,” he said. He extended his hand again, but my mom didn’t even think of taking it. She instead stood at the top of the stairs, her arms crossed, as I and Annabelle walked into my room.

“You know, Bishop said he met your friends, and that they weren’t good people. Y’all look an awful lot like the people he was talking about. So are you them? Are you a bad person, Annabelle?” my mom asked.

Annabelle bristled, and before I could stop her, she turned around and stomped back out my door. I could only assume she was glaring at my mom just like she was glaring at her. I wished she could’ve adopted her sickly sweet persona right now.

“I’m a very good friend and a good person,” Annabelle said.

“Oh, are you now?”

“I think she’s a good friend,” Darius said.

I wasn’t thrilled they were talking to my mom, but the more I tried to stop it, the longer we were going to be stuck at my house. I opened up my drawers, then started to throw the rest of my clothes on top of the blanket on my bed as fast as I could. When all my clothes were out, I folded my blankets over my pile of clothes, gathered the massive bundle up in my arms, and tottered towards the door.

As I got closer to my mother, I noticed her anger had changed. It was more subtle now. A long-burning chemical fire rather than a huge, natural one that’d burn itself out quickly. She was changing strategies.

“Serenity, don’t do this,” my mom said. “You’re making a mistake. Your ‘friends’ here are bad news.”

“You don’t even know me,” Darius protested.

“Move mom,” I said.

“I’m not going anywhere until we talk. I want to talk. Really talk. You owe me that.”

I was glad I couldn’t see her. It made this easier. I glared at the bundle of blankets of clothes in my arms as if I could see through them. “I don’t owe you anything. You’re the one who is kicking me out.”

“Just a conversation, Serenity. One conversation. You haven’t talked to me in weeks and all the information I’ve gotten about you has been secondhand. It’s unacceptable. Communicate with me, please. Just this once.”

My arms shook. The clothes weren’t heavy, but they were awkward and the longer I stood there, the closer I got to dropping them. I should’ve kept ignoring my mom and walked forward, but the pleading edge to her voice had me curious. I let my bundle of clothes and blankets fall to the floor and looked at my mother, trying to figure out what her plan was. Her green eyes were narrowed, but I could now see and feel the scheme behind them. I knew that look.

Her pleas were blatant manipulation. I knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Despite that, looking at her still made me feel guilty. She was old and tired, and no matter how wrong she was, no matter how terrible she could be, she was my mom. The bruise on my soul ached. I sighed. I could indulge her in one conversation if only to satisfy my curiosity about what she was doing.

“I’m packing up first,” I said.

“Serenity, you don’t have to,” Darius said.

“Shut up,” my mom demanded. “You can’t steal my baby away from me like this. You have to let me talk to hi- them,” my mom said. “You two shouldn’t even be here. This is family business.”

“I’m just meeting the parents. It’s tradition right?”

“Tradition? What are you talking about you-” my mom stopped. Her eyes slid up my neck. “What are those?” she asked.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Annabelle had done a decent job of covering up the dark bruises she left on me, but they were still very much there. No amount of makeup could conceal them entirely.

“My neck?” I said.

My mom took a step back so she was standing at the very top stair, and _looked_ at me. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. The bruises and cuts on my arms were more important to lie about than Annabelle’s marks. Thankfully, my mom’s eyes skated right over those and kept coming back up to my neck. She looked back and forth between Annabelle and Darius.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“We’re moving Serenity out of your house,” Annabelle answered.

My mom didn’t reply. She let the air go still. She was thinking hard about something. “Finish packing, then meet me in the kitchen. I’ll give y'all sweet tea and we can talk.”

She had a plan. She would’ve gone straight into shouting if she didn’t. I nodded slowly. “Fine.”

My mom clapped her hands, then stormed down the stairs. I stared after her, feeling more confused than ever.

“Y'all have weird parents. She’s way too hot and cold,” Darius said.

“She usually just hot,” I replied, then picked up my bundle of blankets. “Come on. Let’s finish this.”

My mom made herself sparse as Darius, Annabelle, and I dragged my stuff from my room and jammed it into Darius’s car. I caught her watching us from the kitchen once or twice, her phone pressed to her ear, but she didn’t say anything else to us and I never listened carefully enough to figure out who she was talking to. Even though I agreed to our talk, my anxiety climbed higher every time I walked past her. Knowing the inevitable argument was coming didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

“We could just leave, you know,” Darius said when were alone outside. We’d made quick work of packing. It’d only taken around 30 minutes to gather up all my stuff. “Once Annabelle comes back down, we’ll have everything. Driving off without saying anything would be a pretty good fuck you, don’t you think?”

I toyed and looked at my house. “We could, but I said I’d talk.”

“You don’t owe them anything.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“You really want to go back in there?” he asked.

“I’ll hear her out, but if it gets to be too much, I’ll leave,” I said.

Darius shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Annabelle walked out of my house, carrying a small, dilapidated cardboard box tucked under her arm. Embarrassment flooded me. The box was filled with old, empty bottles of hormones and testosterone blockers. I used to put them in there before my parents knew I was on them, since I couldn’t risk throwing pill bottles in the trash. I’d kept the box even after they’d found out I was transitioning. Privately, I thought of each of those bottles as proof that I got to choose how I wanted to be, that no one else got to decide my gender for me. It was a bit cringy, but I still didn’t want to throw them out, even after all this time.

“We done here?” Annabelle asked, putting the box in Darius's trunk.

“Serenity still wants to talk to her mom,” Darius said.

“Why? What are you hoping to get out of it?”

“She’s got some sort of plan and I want to know what it is. Plus I- I just want to,” I said. “You don’t have to be there if you don’t want to either. You can wait in the car.”

“Fuck no. Are you out of your mind? You’re not going in there alone,” Annabelle replied. She slammed the trunk shut.

“Y’all really don’t-”

“We’re going in and that’s final,” Annabelle declared. She rounded the car, then stopped in front of me. A foot of space separated us. She was looking me dead in the eyes. I looked away.

“Can you not?” I asked.

“Not what?”

“You’re staring at me.”

“And?”

“It’s uncomfortable.”

She stepped closer. “Is it?”

“Annabelle, back off,” Darius scolded. “We agreed to no PDA at the house.”

“We’re not at the house, we’re outside,” she retorted. “And I don’t want to be overheard. Why do you think your mom is planning something?”

“Because she didn’t scream enough,” I said. “And I could feel it. Her emotions.”

“She just seemed pissed off to me. I couldn’t get anything else,” Darius said.

“Same,” Annabelle added.

“I know her well enough to catch the subtleties,” I said.

“Is she going to try and hurt you?” Annabelle asked.

“Emotionally? Definitely.”

“Serenity.”

“No, she’s not going to try and hit me. She’s never hit me. She’s not like that,” I said.

“Fine.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two cars slowly driving down the street. I turned to get a better look. They parked in front of my neighbor's house against the curb. Darius followed my eyes and looked at the cars. Annabelle did the same.

“You know them?” Darius asked.

Before I could answer, the doors to the car doors opened. Bishop and his wife stepped out of the first, and out of the second came two older women and a man. Bishop was dressed in gray slacks, a shirt, and a blazer that were way too small for him. His wife had on a loose white sundress that made her already frail and lithe frame look even smaller.

Behind them, were my mom’s church friends. I couldn’t remember their names for the life of me, but I recognized their faces. One of the women was dressed in a knee-length skirt and bright yellow blouse. She was built like Bishop’s wife. The second had on a long purple skirt and a dark blue top. She was a bit chubby and reminded me a lot of a plum. The man had on a pair of dark slacks and a gray shirt. He was bald and cleanly shaven.

“Yeah. I do. You’ve got be fucking kidding me,” I groaned.

Bishop was looking at the three of now and saying something to his wife. My mom’s friends joined him, and together the five of them marched down the sidewalk towards us.

Darius let out a low whistle. “An intervention. Goddamn. When you said she had a plan, I didn’t think it would be this. Are you sure you still want to go in there?”

The front door opened and my mom stepped outside. She waved energetically at Bishop and his group, then turned and smiled at me. I withered like a dying plant and pressed myself back against the car. I was glad Annabelle was still close to me now. At least I could sort of hide behind her.

“We should leave,” Annabelle said.

I almost agreed but then I caught Bishop’s eyes and felt a hint of apprehension as he approached. I looked over Annabelle’s shoulder at my mom, and saw that she was giving the same conniving smile she directed at me to Bishop now. It threw me for a loop. Wasn’t Bishop shit-talking her? Why was he even here? What were her friends doing here? They barely knew me and I barely knew them.

“No. We’ll talk. This is- there is more here,” I said.

“Serenity, this is self-harm,” Annabelle accused. “Nothing any of them are going to say to you will be good.”

“I’m with her here,” Darius said.

“I’ll let you introduce yourself as my girlfriend,” I replied. “I’ll even let you kiss me. Something else is going on here, and I want to know what.”

Annabelle’s eyes flicked down to my lips and before she could reason herself out of doing it, I leaned forward and kissed her in full view of everyone. Not a light peck either. I kissed her like Annabelle usually kissed me, domineering, long, and filthy. When I pulled away, Annabelle’s eyes had darkened. I looked at Darius.

“Come here,” I said.

“Fuck it,” he laughed. “I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I’m in.” He turned and smiled at my mom, then looked back and waved at Bishop. All of them were openly staring at us. I could feel their shock and confusion. The susurrus of their whispers was impossible to ignore.

Then Darius kissed me and everyone’s surprised reached new heights. It made me feel like the three of us were in the middle of a car crash, but I didn’t pull away from Darius until I couldn’t breathe. I’d never seen Darius look smugger when he pulled away. He glanced over his shoulder, then met Annabelle’s eyes.

“May I?” he asked.

Annabelle kissed him. It was short and to the point. Feeling everyone’s eyes on me made my skin crawl with anxiety. The bruise on my soul throbbed with the amount of emotion pouring into the air, but I didn’t show a hint of discomfort. I looked at my mom. She looked exceedingly unhappy. A deep scowl, somehow more intense than Annabelle’s, had worked its way onto her face, but she still hadn’t started screaming. I was more sure than ever that she had something planned.

“That’s disgusting,” the woman in purple said. Her nose was upturned and her beady brown eyes were looking at the three of us as if we were roadkill.

“It’s lovely to meet you too,” Darius said, stepping away from Annabelle and swinging around. “Who might you be? Are you Serenity’s grandma? You look lovely for your age.”

The thin woman wasn’t fast enough to abort her laugh, and the woman in purple glared at her. “Not all of us can afford botox, Rose,” she sniped.

Rose’s good humor faded. Her thin lips quirked down, and she swept a piece of her dirty blond hair behind her ear. She smiled. “We all have to work with what we have. Bless your heart, Christine.”

“Honey, relax,” the man said. His voice sounded like he’d chewed and swallowed gravel his whole life. He laid a hand on Rose’s arm.

“I’m plenty relaxed Jonas,” Rose said haughtily.

“Now that’s a lie,” Christine said. “You’re as bad-”

“All of you please, come inside,” my mom shouted. “I made tea. We can talk there. It’s too hot out here.”

“If we’re doing this, I get to argue,” Annabelle said.

“Both of you can. I don’t care anymore. Just let my mom talk first,” I replied.

“Now what I like to hear,” Darius grinned.

Annabelle and Darius threaded their arms through mine and together we walked inside the couch to the kitchen. I situated us so we were leaning against the counter instead of sitting at the table. Bishop, my mom, and the rest of her friends trailed in after us. Bishop, his wife, and all my mom’s friends sat at the table, while my mother fetched everyone sweet tea as promised. There was barely enough room for her to maneuver around. The kitchen was way too crowded. The air was stale and the humidity and our combined body heat were making it hotter than it was outside. The worst part was all the emotion though. It was heavy and impossible to ignore. My soul ached and the sweet tea my mom gave me didn’t do anything to soothe it, unlike Madame Grace’s.

“I’m glad you could all come today,” my mom said. She took up position by the entrance of the kitchen, blocking any escape. “I think this will be good for all of us.”

“Will Loyd not be joining us?” Bishop’s wife asked. She shifted some of her scraggly brown hair out of her face and leaned back in her chair. “I saw him sitting outside.”

“Loyd is busy,” my mom replied.

“He didn’t look busy,” Bishop’s wife objected.

“Eloise, please,” Bishop said. He put a hand on top of his wife. It utterly engulfed hers.

“Why are you all here?” I asked. “What is this?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet?” Jonas said. “Your mom invited us to talk to you.”

“I don’t even know who you are,” I said.

“Matthew!” my mom shouted.

“Serenity,” Annabelle corrected. “Stop using the wrong name.”

“You’re the only one who insists on the wrong one,” Rose snapped, her weasel-like face twisting up into a frown.

“We’re leaving if you’re going to insist on being awful,” Darius said.

“Yeah,” I echoed.

“Awful?” Christine repeated. “Awful is making out with two people—two!—in front of other people. It’s downright sinful!”

“You enjoy the show?” Darius asked.

“Enough!” my mother ordered. “Enough, this is supposed to be productive. I won’t let it devolve into arguing yet.”

“Yet?” I asked.

“This is how this is going to work,” my mom said, ignoring me. “Everyone with grievances will get a turn to speak without interruption. Then, once everyone’s issues are on the table, we’ll talk about them and see if we can find some compromise.”

“So what are they doing here then?” I asked, pointing at my mom’s friends. “They’re not a part of this.”

“Your friends aren’t either, but you brought them anyway,” my mom shot back. “But if you have to know, they’re here to keep the peace and bear witness to what’s said here. I don’t want any more rumors.”

“I guess family business only applies to your child’s partners,” Annabelle said.

“Partners,” Bishop scoffed. “Criminals use that name as well, it’s a good one for the three of y'all.”

“Are you accusing us of something, Bishop?” Darius asked.

“I am.”

“And what’s that?”

“You’re aiding abetting him,” Bishop said, jabbing a finger at me. “And the crimes he commits.”

“What crimes have I committed?” I asked.

“You dug up graves,” Eloise said.

“She was falsely arrested for that,” Annabelle replied. “The warrant was shoddy. If they had anything, she’d still be in jail. You’re spreading rumors.|

“I bet you were there too! You’re protecting her!” Eloise snapped.

“Stop!” my mother shouted. Her voice boomed through the kitchen, demanding attention. “We’re proceeding how I want. It’s my house. And I’m going to start.” She cleared her throat, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a few pieces of paper, and unfolded them.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to have speeches written already. Y'all should’ve given me some time, it’s hard to this on the fly,” Darius said.

My mom ignored him and started to read. “Matthew-”

“Serenity! My name is Serenity!” I shouted. “If you call me Matthew one more fucking time, I’m leaving!”

Rose was aghast. “What kind of foul language-”

“I’m sorry. Serenity,” my mom emphasized. “I have a lot I want to say to you. I couldn’t fit all of this in the letter but…”

I tuned her out and focused all my attention on Bishop. He seemed to be doing the same to the three of us. That apprehension was still there, but the longer he sat in the kitchen, the less obvious it became. His lips started to move in silent prayer.

“I guess we didn’t put the fear of God in him after all,” Darius whispered to me.

“You’re going to sit here and listen to this?” Annabelle whispered in my other ear. “This is fucking ridiculous! You said your mom had a plan.”

“She does,” I whispered, but I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince her or myself. Right now, my mom was repeating the same things she’d said to me a million times before.”

“Shh!” Christine said, glaring at us. Annabelle glared right back. Hers burned hotter than Christine’s ever could. I could feel her displeasure piercing through the air like a laser.

“No magic,” I murmured.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Annabelle kept her eyes trained on Christine for a moment longer, then scoffed and looked back at my mom. She was apologizing for my dad’s failures as a bad role model, which I found hilarious. If she wanted to not spread rumors, she was doing an awful job of it. Still, she hadn’t said anything I didn’t expect.

“Now, for Mr. Bishop Windfield,” my mom read.

Bishop’s eyebrows shot up and he turned towards her. His wife stiffened next to him. All my mom’s friends became rapt with attention. Even Darius and Annabelle were looking. I smiled. Here it was. Whatever my mom's plan was had been leading up to this point. I was right.

“Since I’ve now detailed what I have done to help my son, I want to list some grievances I have with you. You’ve been spreading rumors that I am a bad mother, that I didn’t try and help my child, and that I am an unrepentant sinner. None of this is true. I haven’t missed a day of church in 20 years. It is unfair, it is unholy of you, to try and make my child’s sins my own.”

“Marie this is ridiculous,” Bishop said. He sounded nervous.

My mom ignored him. “However, it has come to my attention that you yourself, have not been as honest with your congregation as you should be. You’ve been hiding your sins. I’ve found out that you’ve been having an illicit relationship with Rose-”

“I’m sorry!” Rose shrieked, shooting up in her seat. “Marie, what are you-”

“It’s my turn to speak!” my mom shouted. “Sit down!”

Rose’s chest heaved. Her nails were dug into the table. Her fear filled the air, so strong I could almost taste it. It was as bitter as shitty instant coffee, with hints of iron, like blood. All the attention on me was gone. I was no longer close to the most interesting thing in the room

“Marie, you’re spreading falsehoods,” Bishop said slowly.

“Let her speak,” Jonas said. He was calm considering my mom was accusing who I was pretty sure was his wife of cheating. His heavy eyebrows, like caterpillars on his face, were pointed downward. He put his hand on his chin, and his brown eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I’m interested to hear what she has to say.”

“It’s slander!” Rose cried out. “We’ve been married for 15 years Jonas! You can’t want to hear this!”

“We sat here and listened to slander too. So sit down. You’ll have your turn," Annabelle said.

“Yes. Thank you, Annabelle,” my mom said.

“You’re not welcome.”

My mom continued to read, “Bishop has been having an ongoing illicit relationship with Mrs. Rose Porter. I’ve personally spotted her coming in and out of his office after every sermon, and I’ve seen her car parked outside of the church, and Bishop’s own home-”

“You said she was a friend,” Eloise said quietly. She scooted back her chair and away from Bishop. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “How could you?”

“She is a friend,” Bishop assured. “What Marie is accusing me of is a lie.”

“When did you see the car?” Eloise asked my mom. “When? Was mine there too?”

“If you’d let me finish my-”

“Tell me!” Eloise shouted.

“August 27th, September 3rd, and September 5th. Your car was not there when I saw hers there.”

I watched Eloise mentally calculate the dates in her head, then turn to Bishop. She didn’t seem nearly as surprised as she should’ve been. She was all anger and resignation. I wondered how long she’d been expecting this. “How long?” she asked.

“I’d never betray you,” Bishop said. “Why would I? You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.” He took her hands in his and looked her right in the eye. “Believe me. Please.”

Darius gagged loudly. Bishop glowered at him. Tears were starting to run down Eloise’s face, Rose looked like she was about to get sick, Jonas looked as calm as ever, and Christine had the biggest shit-eating grin on her face as if she was sitting in the live audience of a drama TV show.

“Multiple people have suspected that Bishop was carrying out this relationship. They claim Bishop threatened them with social ruin if they came forward with what they knew. I’ve talked to each of them personally and they’re willing to come forward after today. I also have pictures of Rose’s car outside of Bishop’s house and I recorded how long she stayed in Bishop’s office after sermons. This is all-”

“You’ve been stalking me!” Bishop shouted. “You’re out of your mind. You’ve stalked me and now you’re making up lies!”

“The only one who has made up any lies is you!” my mom replied. “You’ve been spreading rumors about me for a week now and none of it has been true! I’m just telling the truth. I’m sorry if you don’t like it.”

“I want to see those pictures, your logs, and I want to talk to the people you say you’ve talked to,” Jonas said.

“Jonas! You can’t tell me you’re believing this!” Rose cried out.

He shrugged. “I’ve seen more strange things today than I have in the past ten years. I trust you, but I’m going to verify like I do for any other rumors.”

My mom looked back down at her papers, then started to fold them up and put them away. “I think I’ve said enough. Jonas, I’ll give you all the evidence you need before you leave here today. Now, who would like to go next?”

Eloise was openly crying now. Bishop’s attention was split between trying to soothe her and glaring at my mom like she was the devil. No one moved to make another speech. I looked at my mom and saw a slight smile on her lips. Her emotions were too drowned out by all the misery in the room to get a good read on, but I didn’t need to feel them to see how happy she was.

It was bittersweet. Watching Bishop brought so low was satisfying in a way that was hard to put into words, but I didn’t like how she’d used me as bait to get everyone here. Even now, when she was doing something I wanted, it wasn’t for me. It was for her ego and to snuff out the rumors about her. She was manipulative until the very end.

“I’d like to speak,” I said, the words coming out before I could think about them.

“This was supposed to be about you, you don’t get a turn,” Bishop said.

“Everyone with grievances does and I have grievances.”

“Speak then,” my mom said.

“You’re all awful people,” I began. “If God was real, he’d hate you. Fuck y'all. I’m glad I left the church and I’m glad I’m leaving this house. Y'all are made for one another.”

“That’s it?” Christine asked. She had her phone in her hand was pointing at me.

“That’s it,” I confirmed.

Bishop stood up. “Then I’ll go. Marie, you brought us here under false pretenses. You broke my trust.”

“I did nothing of the sort. I told you we were going to meet and talk about Math- Serenity, among other things,” my mom said.

“Among other things?” Bishop snarled.

“If you have grievances, please air them,” my mom said. “But only if they’re true.”

Bishop looked helpless. He was fish out of water, flailing around on the shore, trying to find a way to get back. He searched the room and his eyes found mine. A second later, he gave me a smile that was all teeth and viciousness.

“I have something to say. Not too long ago, your son broke into my office with his two friends, threatened me, beat me, and stole a pen from me. They’ve blasphemed against God, destroyed the sanctity of my church, and now he’s obviously gotten you to buy a ridiculous lie. Everything I’ve said about him has been true, and he’s probably been doing worse things we don’t know about.”

“You have no proof,” I said immediately.

He pulled down the collar of his shirt and pointed to his neck. Nearly faded, yellow bruises form a broken ring where I’d gotten my hands around his throat. “I’ve been bruised. He left physical evidence of his crime .”

“I was never at the church,” I lied. “I don’t know where you got those from, but it wasn’t from me.”

“They were!”

“I don’t believe you,” Jonas said casually.

“You don’t believe a preacher, but you believe that- that thing?” Rose screamed.

“Oh, calm down!” Christine shouted. “You’re hysterical. Drink your tea and take your licks, you’ve earned them Rose.”

“You shut up! You have nothing to do with this!”

Christine held up her phone. The screen showed the room, and a little red number in the upper right-hand corner was ticking away. “I was invited and considering our preacher might be an adulterer and a liar, I think it’s the whole congregation's business. They should be allowed to make their own choices once Marie gives us the evidence.”

“A right to know?” Bishop bellowed. “I was the victim of a crime that almost left me dead! You’re only doing this because I exposed you for stealing from the collection basket!”

“I never did that!” Christine screamed, her veneer of calm finally shattering. “It was a lie and you know it! You’re lying now! I don’t believe someone made an attempt on your life in the slightest!”

“Exactly,” Jonas said. He pointed at me. “You have almost a foot of height on Serenity and more than a hundred pounds. I don’t believe they could've gotten close to you if you didn’t want them to.”

“Then how did I get these bruises? Tell me!” Bishop demanded.

“Rose might’ve given them to you,” Jonas suggested.

The room further exploded into loud incoherent arguing. Bishop was raging at Jonas, Jonas was egging him on, and everyone else was all too happy to fan the flames with him. Annabelle started to look bored. “Can we leave?” she asked. “They’re running on a loop.”

“You want to say anything else before we do?” Darius asked.

I took a final look around the kitchen, taking in the chaos my mother had sewn. I decided to look at is a parting gift, even if she didn’t intend for it to be.

“We can leave,” I said.

The three of us shoved our way through the kitchen and to the door. My mom still blocked the way.

“Leaving so soon?” she asked. “Still planning to leave with your…friends?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to regret it. I’m not letting you come back if you do this. Neither is your father.”

“I know.”

My mom’s face softened. She shut her eyes. When they opened again, they were patient and gentle. It was a look totally at odds with the situation. I hadn’t seen that expression since I was a kid.

“You’ll always be my son and I’ll always love you, no matter what you do, but I won’t support you in this. I won’t help you ruin your life. I hope one day you’ll understand that and come back. When you do, I promise I’ll forgive you.”

My words failed me. The arguing behind me died away. Even Annabelle and Darius became distant. I was locked onto my mom’s eyes, her green a mirror image of my own, and I didn’t see a trace of deceit. She meant every word. She thought she was being kind.

“Fuck off and get out of the way,” Annabelle snarled.

The kindness in my mom’s eyes dropped as soon as it appeared, but she held her tongue and stepped out of the way. I took a step outside of the kitchen, but before we could escape, Bishop shouted, “They’re witches! All three of them! They’re devils incarnate!”

I froze in place, but Darius gave me a hard tug on my arm, and together, the three of us made it out of the house. The sun shined down overhead, so bright that it hurt. It warmed my skin and in seconds, I was too hot. Everything was too hot. I felt like I’d been thrown into a furnace. If Darius and Annabelle weren’t beside me, I wouldn’t have been able to walk.

“You’re fine,” Darius said as he opened the back door of his car and guided me inside. The leather of the seat burned my legs. I scooted on top of the mix of blankets and clothes that I’d jammed into the backseat, then looked at the house.

“You good?” he asked.

“A minute. Please,” I said. My voice was hoarse. I could feel tears building up behind my eyes and forced them back. I wasn’t going to cry.

“I wanted to see what happens now,” Annabelle said. “Bishop accused us. No one believed him, because it sounded like bullshit, but I want to watch how this ends.”

“Inside the car. No more talking,” I said. “And air conditioner.”

“You had me at air conditioner,” Darius said.

It didn’t take long for Darius's car to cool down or for people to start emerging from my mom’s house. Jonas, Christine, and Eloise came out first. Eloise was still crying. Jonas had his eyes fixed forward, while Christine walked backward and waved her hands wildly while she shouted. Once they got down to the lawn, Bishop and Rose emerged from the door, shouting at the retreating trio.

“This did not good how I thought it would,” Darius said from the driver's seat. He was leaned forward, looking through the passenger side window. I could faintly hear the argument through the glass and the sound of the AC, but only enough for me to understand their tone. “I know you said your mom had a plan, but I didn’t think she had a nuke like that. I didn’t think Bishop would accuse us of attacking him either.”

“He accused us of being fucking witches,” Annabelle said. “He doesn’t care anymore.

“No one believed him,” Darius said. “If he said it another time, people might’ve taken him more seriously, but doing it now makes it sound like he’s deflecting from cheating. “By the way, does he have a thing for women who look like twigs?”

“What if he keeps repeating it?” Annabelle asked. “This doesn’t have to be the end. You’re being too optimistic.”

“Christine recorded that,” I said.

“We’re going to be immortalized on a 50-year old’s Facebook feed. You should be honored,” Darius replied. “Seriously though, y'all are worrying about nothing. He was already calling you a devil and whatever else before. If people don’t take him seriously then, they’re definitely not going to now.”

“What about the choking part?” I asked. “He had bruises.”

“It’s not salacious enough, and let’s face it, really hard to believe. The cheating is a much easier sell. You heard Jonas.”

Outside, Jonas, Christine, and Eloise had stopped and turned to face Bishop and Rose. All five of them were on the sidewalk now, only a few feet apart. It looked like all of them were talking at once. My mom stood in the doorway, her sweet tea in hand, watching in silence.

“We need to be more careful,” I said. “I’m going to be in the paper. People are going to find that out and use it to attack me.”

Darius didn’t have a response ready for that. He sat back in his chair and adjusted his glasses. “Point taken.”

“We have dinner with Maribelle and Waylon in three fucking days this bullshit is going to get back to them. They’re going to think we were fucking with their people again,” Annabelle said.

I rested my head on the seat in front of me. My heartfelt heavy. My mom’s words kept ringing in my head. I turned to watch the argument continue to unfold outside and forced myself to breathe.

“Are you okay?” Annabelle asked.

I looked at my mom. Her eyes were fixed on our car. The windows were tinted too dark for her to make me out inside, but it still felt like she was looking right at me. “I don’t know. I’m upset about my mom.”

“Ha. Your mom,” Darius said.

“Shut up,” Annabelle snapped, hitting his arm.

I sat back in my chair and smiled weakly. The fight outside was winding down. Eloise and Jonas had retreated back to their car. The only ones left arguing were Bishop, Rose was Christine. Christine had her phone held up high in her hand, pointing it right at Rose’s and Bishop’s as she shouted. Suddenly, Rose lunged forward and knocked it from her hand. It smashed against the concrete. Jonas honked his horn and Christine started to gesticulate madly. Bishop got between her and Christine and pushed Rose back.

Christine picked up her phone from the ground and inspected it. I couldn’t tell how bad the damage was from where I sat, but it couldn’t have been good. She let out a final string of shouts, then stalked to the car Eloise and Jonas were inside of and got in. Jonas started to drive away.

Now Rose and Bishop were going at it. Bishop was waving his hands and shouting, while Rose had started to cry and was yelling with even greater fury.

“Let’s go. Show’s over,” Darius said, buckling his seatbelt.

“I hope her phone is broken and that recording is gone,” Annabelle said.

My dad appeared at the door beside my mom. She leaned over and said something to him. He looked at Bishop than at us. He waved.

I waved back as we drove away from the house.


End file.
